The ‘realist’ school of foreign-policy analysis – which holds that international relations are driven by a struggle for power between nations – tends to be particularly gloomy about the likelihood of war between China and the United States. John Mearsheimer, a professor at Chicago University who is regarded as the doyen of realist theorists, has set out the argument that ‘China cannot rise peacefully’ in a much-discussed book, published in 2014, called The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
