China would be a naval war. China needs to import a lot of food and fuel. And China funds itself by exporting a lot of goods. A strong navy could really interrupt their import-export business. And as I understand it, the Chinese navy is mostly designed for coastal defense rather than defending supply chains far from home.
I don’t think it is in our interests to mess with China. But if we did, I think we could cripple them without using up too many weapons.
The problem is that they have land links to the rest of Asia and while those can be cut, it can be difficult given what has to be overflown to get to them. Blockading their coast will hurt them, but it won’t shut them down; they’ll just divert to their land links.
You are correct. We could blockade the Straits of Malacca with 2 ships and 60% of China’s oil supplies would be stopped. China knows it and they are not going to invade Taiwan. Even if they “won” it would be a disaster for them.
“China would be a naval war.”
Well, our destroyers are deadly in ramming attacks.