They would have to sink two carriers at once, and then have enough resources left over to handle the other four we would send at them. This is true even if they do attack in the midst of another crisis ... say in the Mid East. My guess is that whatever they do will come after a break out in the Mid East and then probably having N. Korea go south. In the midst of both of those is when they would act militarily if they are going to do so.
But, trying to keep up with us conventionally would bankrupt them just as it did the Soviet Union, and on the naval front, they are hopelessly behind if we view it purely conventionally.
So, they will need to either come up with new technologies, or produce a naval assymetrical threat ... either of which they must then maintain and prove that they have it in numbers and with the capability to keep us at bay for a long term. None of these scenarios do that IMHO ... and they know it ... even though they have to build up such a threat at any rate to handle other regional threats.
That is not to say that they are not considering other alterntives for us and that they are not deadly serious about it. I believe they are and I discuss and present such "other" possibilities in:
Volume One of this series, "Breath of FIre", has been selling for some time on Amazon. Volume II, "Trodden Under", is going to press this week.
FRegards.
You are right on the mark regarding how a Chinese attack would be timed and executed, but I have to say that I believe that with our current level readiness, they could very well take Taiwan in such a turn of events. They know that they will only get one chance to cripple our ability to project power in the region. If their forces are concentrated and deployed appropriately, taking out one carrier and much of it's battle group is very likely. What wasn't mentioned in the article was the new torpedo developed by the Russians, which will likely end up in the Chinese arsonal. I can't remember the exact method this torpedo uses, but somehow, it can create a pocket (or many pockets) of air around it's outer surface, allowing it to travel much faster than our ships could effectively respond to a torpedo attack. They're first move would likely be to disable or destroy some of our key satellites which monitor the region. Everything would escallate very quickly from there, because if our satellites over that region go out, our forces there would immediately go on their highest level of alert. As you stated, North Korea would likely invade the South just before that, and if we were also heavilly engaged in Iraq at that time, our forces would be taxed at or possibly beyond their limit. We were able to fight on two major fronts in WW2, but only after most of our production capabillity was shifted to war-time economics. What we have in our favor is that our milliary is MUCH more efficient now than it was in the 1940's. Mass boming has been replaced with surgical air strikes and enormous ground forces, ala D-Day, would not be required to deal with China. The question is, how much of our millitary would be needed to effectively deal with simultanious conflicts in Iraq, North Korea, and Taiwan and do we have enough to fight on three fronts at the same time?
Even if they did, they'd still be screwed -- they can't take out our silos.
I see a huge difference between the Soviet and Chinese military build-ups. The Soviets exported crap, mainly to its allies, which were dirt poor. China exports quality products to first world countries and earns hard currency from the wonderful marketing stratagies of Target, Kmart, Walmart, etc.
We, the American people are funding this Chinese military build-up. The very missle or super cavitating torpedo that eventually sinks a U.S. Navy carrier might end up being totally funded by the Walmart in mine or your's hometown.