Imperial Germany and Japan are textbook examples.
Germany’s rivalry with Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is often considered an analogue to U.S.-China competition: In both cases, an autocratic challenger threatened a liberal hegemon. But the more sobering parallel is this: War came when a cornered Germany grasped it would not zip past its rivals without a fight.
For decades after unification in 1871, Germany soared. Its factories spewed out iron and steel, erasing Britain’s economic lead. Berlin built Europe’s finest army and battleships that threatened British supremacy at sea. By the early 1900s, Germany was a European heavyweight seeking an enormous sphere of influence—a Mitteleuropa, or Middle Europe—on the continent. It was also pursuing, under then-Kaiser Wilhelm II, a “world policy” aimed at securing colonies and global power.
But during the prelude to war, the kaiser and his aides didn’t feel confident. Germany’s brash behavior caused its encirclement by hostile powers. London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, Russia, formed a “Triple Entente” to block German expansion. By 1914, time was running short. Germany was losing ground economically to a fast-growing Russia; London and France were pursuing economic containment by blocking its access to oil and iron ore. Berlin’s key ally, Austria-Hungary, was being torn apart by ethnic tensions. At home, Germany’s autocratic political system was in trouble.
The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite.
foreignpolicy.com
China today is what Japan and Germany is in the prelude before WW1 and WW2.
Basically a rising country, with little fuel left to sustain its ascendancy.