Here's what the US and the West would do if they had a proper plan to contain China: they would build close ties with Russia. Russia and China are natural rivals and they have competing interests in the Far East and in Central Asia. Russia would love to get a lot closer to Europe and peoples that they consider culturally tied to. Once upon a time, Russia even tried to join Nato.The idea of blockading China who has land borders with Russia and ME, not to mention China being the 5th largest oil producer itself is just Reddit level IQ, and that's not even getting into how US who themselves are isolated from Euroasia and actually dependant on imports can survive a counter blockade from China. If US military actually invests in it it says more about the competency of US strategic planning than anything else.
I don't think you can model US behaviour using China's way of thinking. European culture and it's US and Isarel spawns has an intrinsic, instinctive, religious desire to attack and steal, they can't help it, it's not the result of rational planning, it's just their nature and what they wake up wanting to do.
The reason they're going after everyone else instead of China is because China wil make them feel pain, while Yemen and Venezuvela appeares to be painless, American instint requires them to steal but American instinct also don't want to experience pain. There is no 6D chess being played, they're not seeing 10 steps ahead, they're just moving on instinct.
Dealing with the west is really like dealing with an animal, the animal will always want to bite you, there's no reasoning with it, but the animal is also afraid of pain and the animal don't really do much planning like a human does. So the way you deal with it shouldn't be to become an animal yourself, the way you deal with it should be to avoid engagement while teaching it to associate bad behavior with pain, over and over, until it's drilled into the animal's instinct. That's all.
But the West went and did the exact opposite: it alienated Russia enough to start a war. And now their relationship is unfixable while the Russia - China relationship is stronger than ever.
I'm going to correct this statement; it should read "which can theoretically hurt China". Because just look at the effects of the American interventions: not only have they been relatively ineffectual, they've actually pushed the targets closer to China's camp. And there's no way to improve the outcomes without actually sending in proper forces and making into a full-blown war. Something like engagin in a full-blown war with Venezuela is about the fastest way to ruin the American strategic position.Not disagreeing, but another way to look at it is that the US is going after those who work with or want to work with China, which can indirectly hurt China.