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They will not venture out into blue water conflict with us for quite some time.

Agreed. So game out for me what happens after these "initial hostilities" that you seem to foresee the Chinese having some success at under cover of their local air cover.

How, for example, do you see them responding to a full-on blockade of their shipping by the USN, Royal Navy and Japanese DF? What does such a blockade do to the Chinese economy vs. the Rest of World?

Given world petrol distribution, and assuming best case partnering of India+Russia+China vs. the West, exactly how long does that last?

In other words, how can they attempt "close in" hostilities before the "quite some time" in the future when they can support a blue-water confrontation?

They will wait until after the Olympics, hoping for a different US administration (like a Hillary, Kerry, or some RINO).

In the mean time they will keep buying and building more and more of their own subs (the new diesel electrics are strong for the litoral waters) including their new nuclear SSNs. In addition, they will keep the pedal to the medal building new, modern surface combatants. With all of this they will attempt to break the blockade if necessary...and prolong the conflict and do enough damage for us to back away.

But they hope to avoid one altogether if they can... they will move quickly enough on Taiwan to have a new administration pause in coming too quickly to its aide, hoping to have us face a "fait a complait. In the 2009 time frame, their naval and air assets will have increased dramatically at the rate they are building and training now, and they will hope that a weaker administration will see it as too risky and too costly to try and take it back.

In the mean time they are also trying to secure oil reserves with Russia (in Siberia and elsewhere) and with the 'stan countries that are frioendly to them so they can bring it in overland.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, a full scale blockade and assault on shipping by US Navy submarines would totally cripple their economy and I think that's the conventional wisdom to follow. Things could be dicey in the first day of fighting for our Navy, since our pilots would be so heavily outnumbered by their air power. To mitigate this to some degree, we could fly stealth bombers out of Guam or Japan to hit as many airfields and communications facilites as possible. That would make it difficult for them to coordinate all that air power. After that, you pick it apart a piece at a time. Within a few weeks, the blockade of their ports will have them starved for oil and we'll be in a pretty good position to force a peace settlement.

China's economy would be in ruins. The rest of the world's economy would take a hit, but probably not as bad of one as most would think. The situation would probably be good for the economies of Japan, South Korea, and Brazil as they would likely take up much of the slack in manufactured goods no longer coming out of China. Also, oil prices may drop slightly, since none could be sold to China due to the blockade.

Now, if Russia enters the war on China's side, the blockade will take longer as they have lots of oil to sell to China. However, China relies on many shipped in resources, not just crude oil. The blockade would still take its toll, but it would take longer. In this situation, I think the prudent thing to do would be for the US to redeploy USAF assets to Japan (probably draw the forces out of Europe, if there are any left, since that area is now more or less stable anyway) and engage in a somewhat protracted air war in order to supress their air force. This might take several months. The USAF is up to that challenge, although it could turn out to be a bloody fight. Much would rest on the deep strike abilities of the stealth bombers and our fighter pilots' superior air-to-air combat skills (not to mention superior aircraft).

I think it's highly unlikely India will enter an alliance with China - they've hated each other with a passion since that nasty little incident with Tibet.