Kaplan's article on "How we would Fight China" in Atlantic Journal proved the existence of a possible dangerous furthur of Sino-US relationship: a kind of relationship highly possibly will appeare between a falling hegemony state and his perceived possibiled potential challenger.
This kind of war is called preventive war: the falling hegemony defenitely will launch a war before his final fall and so that would shape the international environment so that it can keep his hegemony position as long as possible.
Although the author maybe misunderstand today's China, he still point out a very important question in a different way: the possible falling of the US and it's possible affect to the world as a whole. In the debate on the end of cold war, one main reason why the cold war ended peacefully is that some shcolars believe that because the former USSR is not a hegemon but a challenger for the hegemony with the US. So the leader of USSR can accept the fall of cold struggle rather than launch a total revenge and make the world very hot. But US of course is different: US is a hegemon and it will never accept the lose of its position peacefully.
Then we may face a very dangerous furthur: the possible conflict between two nuclear states. Though the US may have a heavy shield to protect itself, but what about it's possbile alliance in the region? Even though US and its alliancy will finally win the conflict, do they have enough capability to manage billions of people in China? According to their performence in IRAQ, its really hard to say so.
On the other side, we have to admit that Kaplan has just describe one possible furthur of Sino-US relationship and describe it like a self-fullfiling peripheory. It's dangerous, but also helpful to remind us that we should work hard to prevent such a dangerous furthur. It's would be one of the most important issues which would affect the human being on this planet as a whole.