China is actually very rational, and won’t risk a shooting war with America unless they have no other option. They will take as much territory as they can without engaging America in a war, as long as America follows the path of appeasement. Hong Kong is equivalent to the Nazis occupying the Austria. Taiwan would be equivalent to the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.
I think the Chinese are confident that America would stand aside if they invade Taiwan, and that a preemptive attack on the US Navy is not necessary. Biden is owned by the ChiComs and will just send a sternly worded letter to the UN. America would not be forced into war unless China made a play for Korea. China could create a de facto Soviet Bloc by rolling though Southeast Asia and installing puppet governments in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, without any international intervention.
So is "Divide and Conquer".
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
The Art of War by Sun Tzu.