I believe the same will occur with air assets...hoping to draw our strike packages in after the carrier where they can use their new area air defense ddg's and huge numbers of land based aircraft to try and waylay our own aircraft.
Either way...having a rich target like that to go in after in any conflict over Taiwan will complicate things and make them mopre dangerous. We are more than up to it...it will just increase the cost of our total victory. The PRC is, of course, hoping that a new administration will weigh that cost and choose not to intervene and thereby achieve a political victory where they could not achieve a military one.
Diesels are quiet but they have so many major drawbacks, size, speed, range, having to surface for snorkels, etc. I'd put any three or four of the Chinese best Kilos or other diesel electric subs against the Seawolf any day, and I'd bet all my money on the only Chinese subs that left that battle were the ones that the Seawolf chose not to send to the bottom. I wouldn't give those diesels a real shot at getting close enough to our Carriers either. The Nimitz's classified speeds match or exceed many torpedos, and that's no small matter. It is a real threat that has to be taken serious, but I don't believe in the final analysis they would have any major victories.