“...hypothetical case that China might do so, even though it hasn’t actually done so in nearly six decades?”
Invasion of Tibet (1950)
Korean War (1950–53)
Vietnam War (1959–75)
Sino-Indian War (1962)
Sino-Soviet border conflict (1969)
Sino-Vietnamese War (1979)
They’re still in Tibet. They control N. Korea and they still retain Indian territory.
Psst, building islands as the pretext to claim other nations’ territorial waters is aggression. The islands they’ve built represent China’s invasion and conquest of other nations territory.
It is only because of America’s and Russia’s military stance and treaties they have not been more aggressive.
This may be news to you but the Korean War was started by the Norks, not China; the Vietnam War was started by the French; and the Sino-Indian War was started by India. The 1969 conflict with the USSR barely met the threshold of a skirmish and both sides were probably equally at fault.
And none of those things are on this side of 37 years ago.
Compare to the US, which right at this very moment is engaged in genuinely aggressive war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and is threatening additional wars above and beyond all that, and is perpetually engaged in overthrowing foreign governments it doesn’t like, all around the globe.
A neutral observer, faced with an American accusing China of aggression, would be taken aback by the outrageous level of hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness it takes to make such an accusation.