China is playing long ball. They have their eyes on Russia's natural resources. Putin has to know this, if he doesn't he's dumber than a box of rocks.
In addition to having their eyes on Russia's natural resources, they're paying attention to the fact that the US has pretty much depleted so much of our own conventional weapons arsenal that should they decide to cross the Taiwan straight and take Taiwan (which they WILL do before the end of their pupped Biden's first and only term) they won't run into much beyond naval opposition.
I'm not saying our Navy would be outclassed, they won't. We may however be outnumbered and we all know China doesn't give a second thought to throwing bodies at winning a war. They view their own poeple as chattel, to do with what they wish. If that means losing 5m of their own to win a war, they'll do it.
Suggest you win Sun Tsu's "Art of War"
I generally agree my only hope is they do care about losing and about losing that navy or a lot of it, and the economic consequences. And that they’d have to fight Japan and Australia as well.
They might be likely to try a broader attack like Japan did in WW2.
And then America doesn’t like to lose wars and this might escalate up to something much more devastating. Just thoughts.