The funny thing is that the exact opposite is true. Once upon a time, Taiwan (yes, just Taiwan) was strong enough that the PLAN did not dare to navigate the Taiwan Strait. And then it was that China didn't have the naval capability to invade Taiwan. After that, Taiwan with US help would be able to fight off an invasion. Then it was Taiwan could hold out long enough to be reinforced by the US. Next was Taiwan could make an invasion costly enough that China would be unwilling to attack. Nowadays, the story is that the US and its allies would appear strong enough that China would be deterred from attacking.
Just by looking at how the narrative has shifted, it's clear that the US itself feels that its position in the Western Pacific is eroding, and eroding quickly at that. American allies and would be allies have sensed this shift as well and they've become increasingly less supportive of helping out in a US-China fight. Vietnam is the most pragmatic of these countries and they've signed agreements with China to de-escalate conflict. Korea was already unlikely to fight anywhere outside of the Korean peninsula but their new president is explicitly non-interventionist. Japan is still very worried by China but they've become visibly less confrontational in the last year or so. Philippines' Marcos is an American lapdog but even he's been less enthusiastic fighting China, and his main political rival is using warmer relations with China as an important poilitical issue. Only India is particularly interested in a confrontation with China, but they've shown themselves to be far weaker militarily than they appear to be, and it's the Americans that don't trust them much anymore.
And if you look at the US itself, trying to project power so far from home is super hard. What makes it even harder is that China is almost as strong as the US itself militarily and that the Western Pacific is its home waters. The only two services that can really play a role in the region are the USAF and the USN, and it's here that the differences look ugly, and it's ugly for the Americans. The USAF has far more aircraft and more combat aircraft than the PLAAF. The problem is that the only airbases that can really be used are the ones in Japan, Philippines, and Korea, and these bases simply don't support very many planes. It ends up being a couple hundred planes facing off against almost all of PLAAF, and none of these planes are 5th gens! Even worse, even disregarding the generational difference, a lot of the combat aircraft and force multipliers are getting very old and are less capable than their Chinese equivalents. Just compare how sad an E-3 looks compared to a KJ-500, and remember that the USAF doesn't even have two dozen of the former!
On paper, the USN has 11 supercarriers so it's heads and shoulders stronger than the PLAN. These supercarriers can carry F-35s and these represent the 5th gen fighters that the US can bring to the Western Pacific. The problem is that each supercarrier only carries a single squadron of 14 F-35s with the rest of its fighter complement being three squadrons of 12 F/A-18s each. And not all supercarriers even have F-35 squadrons at all - Ford for example, just has four squadrons of F/A-18s. The USN can complement this with LHDs and LHAs but each of these can only carry 6 F-35s apiece normally. Supposedly you can cram 20 fighters on each of them, but it would be extremely impractical to do so. Overall, this is just not going to be enough when the PLAAF probably has some 400 J-20s by now, and is getting more and more of these every year.
The Americans can see the writing on the wall but their attempts to Pivot to Asia have all failed. Right now, they're starting to move troops out of the first island chain. They'll never admit it publically, but I don't think that the Pentagon has any confidence in a war in the Western Pacific and they're already weighing alternative strategies. All the trend lines look terrible for them, and by 2035 the conversation would be about whether it's possible for the US to hold Guam.
Just by looking at how the narrative has shifted, it's clear that the US itself feels that its position in the Western Pacific is eroding, and eroding quickly at that. American allies and would be allies have sensed this shift as well and they've become increasingly less supportive of helping out in a US-China fight. Vietnam is the most pragmatic of these countries and they've signed agreements with China to de-escalate conflict. Korea was already unlikely to fight anywhere outside of the Korean peninsula but their new president is explicitly non-interventionist. Japan is still very worried by China but they've become visibly less confrontational in the last year or so. Philippines' Marcos is an American lapdog but even he's been less enthusiastic fighting China, and his main political rival is using warmer relations with China as an important poilitical issue. Only India is particularly interested in a confrontation with China, but they've shown themselves to be far weaker militarily than they appear to be, and it's the Americans that don't trust them much anymore.
And if you look at the US itself, trying to project power so far from home is super hard. What makes it even harder is that China is almost as strong as the US itself militarily and that the Western Pacific is its home waters. The only two services that can really play a role in the region are the USAF and the USN, and it's here that the differences look ugly, and it's ugly for the Americans. The USAF has far more aircraft and more combat aircraft than the PLAAF. The problem is that the only airbases that can really be used are the ones in Japan, Philippines, and Korea, and these bases simply don't support very many planes. It ends up being a couple hundred planes facing off against almost all of PLAAF, and none of these planes are 5th gens! Even worse, even disregarding the generational difference, a lot of the combat aircraft and force multipliers are getting very old and are less capable than their Chinese equivalents. Just compare how sad an E-3 looks compared to a KJ-500, and remember that the USAF doesn't even have two dozen of the former!
On paper, the USN has 11 supercarriers so it's heads and shoulders stronger than the PLAN. These supercarriers can carry F-35s and these represent the 5th gen fighters that the US can bring to the Western Pacific. The problem is that each supercarrier only carries a single squadron of 14 F-35s with the rest of its fighter complement being three squadrons of 12 F/A-18s each. And not all supercarriers even have F-35 squadrons at all - Ford for example, just has four squadrons of F/A-18s. The USN can complement this with LHDs and LHAs but each of these can only carry 6 F-35s apiece normally. Supposedly you can cram 20 fighters on each of them, but it would be extremely impractical to do so. Overall, this is just not going to be enough when the PLAAF probably has some 400 J-20s by now, and is getting more and more of these every year.
The Americans can see the writing on the wall but their attempts to Pivot to Asia have all failed. Right now, they're starting to move troops out of the first island chain. They'll never admit it publically, but I don't think that the Pentagon has any confidence in a war in the Western Pacific and they're already weighing alternative strategies. All the trend lines look terrible for them, and by 2035 the conversation would be about whether it's possible for the US to hold Guam.
Also note that the US would be in huge trouble within weeks. They don't have a very large stockpile of advanced munitions and they don't have the manufacturing capability to make it in large quantity. And even if they start converting civilian facilities to produce these munitions, they'll immediately run out of rare earths and other critical materials. As most of these materials have to come from China, they'll have to do without.
