Check the latest results from the Palestine war. China would do well to thoroughly analyse the cause of how a tiny nation could in the end best a (relative) military giant. If we waive moral arguments and only look at force balance, this Palestine conflict is the CCW preview.
Some points:
Israel's fire support was nearly exclusively from A2A fighter jets carrying glide bombs, not artillery, drones and loitering bombers. Probably this led to scenarios where soldiers could not have on demand fire support, but had to wait for planes to take off (at which point the Palestinians would be in hiding). And the number of munitions dropped can't be too high if you don't have dedicated bombers and/or rocket artillery.
The use of conscripts: many had poor training and moral caliber, making occupation an unnecessary struggle. Not only that, but using them caused economic impact. In contrast, Russia using well paid volunteers instead has avoided a significant economic loss, through their training is not necessarily better than Israeli counterparts. China needs top tier training programs for career soldiers, while less important rear line tasks could conceivably be left to Russian style volunteers. And conscription is perhaps better off avoided altogether.
Israel allowed other nations around Palestine to support it and didn't commit signficant retaliation even against violent blockades being imposed. This put the leadership on a timer. If a second nation plays Ansarallah or Iran against Chinese products and shipping during a restart of the CCW, China must not only do a few symbolic raids or retaliate with covert actions only, but fully counterattack.
The entitlement of Israeli officials in trying to access their allies was a pure shot in the foot. They could have cast the conflict in a more positive light with soft propaganda, but insisted on ham fisted tactics like buying corrupt politicians into censoring the public. Imagine if Russia insisted to police average Chinese people for anti-Ukraine war sentiment and demand every last bit of it being scrubbed.
Finally, with minimal industry, Israel does not really have a way to replenish munitions quickly. Especially not IADS. That might be a contributor to why the war has to end soon. China can avoid this rather easily.
Imho the Israel war will be a significant event for China to analyse, but it is far from a prediction that the PLA will be insufficient to hold Taiwan, because China is not subject to the same types of pitfalls, despite the on paper power balance having some resemblance.
That's my take on the soon ending conflict and what it teaches China.
