Hell, 2010 would be premature.
They see the same things we do ... and will be in an economic position to make their play (if one is to be made) within the next few years time frame.
Their economic position is worsening, not improving, except in the Shanghai-Hong Kong region--which is kinda tired of carrying the rest of China as dead weight.
Translate Pat Buchanan's speeches into Chinese, change all the references to the US to China, leave the complaints about foreign devils intact, and he'll go over great in Manchuria.
In order to do so, they will have to negate the US Navy and they know it. A tall order for sure, but one they are planning for. No other scenario will work for them ... or for anyone else for that matter.
They'd have to negate the entire United States Navy, around the entire world.
They are trying to use limited numbers of Sunburn and the newer Yahkont missiles to move in that direction, but that is playing against the CBG's strength, which is air defense and which has not been sitting still since the introduction of the Sunburn quite a few years ago.
Wonder what they'll do when they discover Russian arms vendors have yet to figure out the concept of "truth in advertising?"
Even so, those missiles could maybe pull off taking down an Aegis cruiser or Carrier with a saturtion attack ... and over the next few years perhaps they will develop enough resource to mount a couple of them.
One nasty problem for the ChiComs is that the South China Sea is full of large ships. An uncaged antiship missile has no friends. They can easily "saturate" a tanker inbound to Shanghai.
But then they would face a retrribution that would destroy their entire navy in short order and so defeat the reasoin for making the attack in the first place.
The big issue here is that China's admirals are buying the shiny toys of seapower--DDGs, SSKs, et cetera.
They aren't buying the dull, boring stuff, like amphibs. But it's the dull, boring stuff that does power projection--which is the sole offensive REASON for having a navy.
So, short of something much more effective, that plan can only be considered a complimentary strategy in any major war scenario.
Defeating the US Navy is the major war scenario.
Absent that, their ambitions will remain landlocked.
Unless, of course, they hire Louis Farrakhan as a consultant for "The Million Man Swim" :o)
I still believe that the most serious, most viable threat to the CBG is sub-surface. I went to some ends to develop a purely fictional super-weapon in my series of novels to make the rest possible.
The problem with superweapons of the sort that you describe is that they eat budgets at a prodigious rate, and every dime spent on developing a single-purpose superweapon is a dime that isn't available for things like combat sealift--and China has huge shortfalls in combat sealift that are not being made good.
If they ever did come up with something that could negate our sea power advantage ... it would make the entire situation orders of magnitude more dangerous and difficult.
A seapower advantage is not merely a matter of a fleet off the enemy's coast. It's things like being able to chase the Chinese flag off of the world ocean--which we could do right now. It's being able to turn off the flow of raw materials to Chinese industry--which we could do right now. It's being able to interdict all Chinese trade with the rest of the world--which we can do right now.
In the worst-case scenario, the Chinese could "win." However, when "winning" includes never getting another drop of oil into a Chinese port, or never getting goods to world markets, it starts looking considerably less attractive.
Something else to consider is what happens to mercantilist armies. In the US Army, the ambitious soldiers enter into the combat arms, because that's where the Army's senior leadership comes from. In China, the ambitious soldiers try to get into business admin--because they will get rich, and being in the outfit that generates the funds for the PLA budget grants them power.
Historically, mercantilist armies--armies whose main business in peacetime is commercial business instead of training for war--perform abysmally in combat.
I believe the Chinese know all of this and are trying to develop plans, however furtile to our way of thinking, to overcome our advantage and play to their strengths. Putting their genie back in the bottle might end up being a very formidable task, particular in any ground campaign(s) on mainland Asia if it came to that.
I really doubt that we'll go mano a mano with the ChiComs in mainland Asia, absent a significant nuclear preparatory bombardment--and the question then becomes, "So what's the point?"
They are tryig to think "outside the box" ... outside our box specifically ... and they have to, and we'd best not under-estimate them. I believe they could develop in-theater sea lift capability fairly quickly ... and it would not have to be world-class if they were able to overcome what you and I know would be their huge, primary obstacle which we discussed in the last exchange.
As to the cost of "super-weapons" ... that depends on the perspective. A weapon can be guaged "super" by either its technological wonder, or by simply what it accomplishes. Sometimes the two don't have to be a perfect, or even a close match.
The Chinese know all of this too and will be bending every effort towards it and we will, of course, be cognizant of it and watching it. One way to help would be to, as a government and a people, to stop funding their growth and delivering much of our own production capability right in their laps. But that just IMHO.
The Japanese of World War II could clearly not match us in production or technology ... but they caused a lot of hurt before they were put down.
As to oil ... the Chinese would have to aquire it by expansion and in cohoots with our other enemies ... like our Islamic fundamental foes in the Mid East. Don't think for a moment that they are not all aware of this too and that the Chinese are not, in their own plans, somehow taking that into account. It's not something one forgets ... no more than the Japanese did. And for a while, the Japanese Empire made it stick to their ultimate complete undoing.
I know it seems very unlikely to many people that the Chinese and the Islamics could/would get together, but then again, many people thought he same about any alliance in World War II between Hitler and Stalin. That initial unlikely and ultimately alliance-gone-bad allowed for much greater German expansion and served ultimately to prolong the war in Europe ... and it could have been dramatically worse had Hitler taken out England. Thank God, English grit, and American inginuity, bravery and support that he did not.
I pray we continue to foster and display those same qualities today in rich abundance ... we may need them, not just as a military, but as a people.
Thanks for the congenial discussion.
RE: They aren't buying the dull, boring stuff, like amphibs. But it's the dull, boring stuff that does power projection--which is the sole offensive REASON for having a navy.
Granted they are not buying such things. But are they building them? Have you personally visited the PRC? I have. One of the things I noticed was quite an industry, in general, for the production of hydrofoils and hovercraft. Beyond that, the ship building capabilities in the Shang Hai area keep increasing. At present, most of this is channelled into nominally "civilian" craft. (A somewhat related anecdote. A bit over a year ago, the Port Of Oakland, CA, USA received a series of new container cranes, larger than any previously brought in. Apparently, firms from all over the world bid. The winner was an org in Shang Hai. So, one day, in floated the cranes, on top of a hull built specifically for transporting such cranes. It had to come in during low tide, clearing the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge by inches... I'd say the ChiCOMs can definitely build things besides wooden junks!).