Something to keep in mind when considering China as an adversary. Expect much of its adversarial activity to be of a nature and level calculated to remain below the threshold of a shooting war, for the following reason.
China began it's one-child policy in 1980 and ended it in 2016. The "only child" cadre born during that period are now aged 9 - 44. Coincidentally all of China's current People's Liberation Army front line personnel, as well as some of its officers, were born during that period.
If China chooses to go to war and loses many thousands of men, and somewhat fewer women, each of those families ends at that point. In an ancestor-honoring or -worshiping society can you imagine the impact?
I'm sure I cannot grasp the full meaning of that calamity as we don't much honor our ancestors, we may not even like them much. I suspect the PLA may be substantially less effective than its numbers might suggest at first, especially if committed outside of what is normally considered China.
China's leaders have to be substantially reluctant to commit troops in serious combat beyond China's borders. They in fact have not done so in any large numbers since the Korean War ended, decades before 1980. The social upheaval implicit in long PLA casualty lists could be regime-ending, and China's ruling oligarchs know it.
