Sink them all. What can the African and West Asian non-existence navies do?
I said in my earlier post. With China eliminated, no one will have the ability to challenge the Hegemon in the next millennium given the current structure of world economic order. The Hegemon can continue to print god-smacking amount of money and the rest of the world will gladly accept them in exchange of their goods and servitudes.
this is a total mismatch between capability and wishes though. the only way to actually win against China in the long run is regime change and even then it's not a sure thing. Just see how Russia is still a pain in the ass and can inflict significant damage even with just a relatively small conflict, and they
were successfully regime changed. Otherwise even a total naval blockade and total sanctions doesn't do anything, in the long run markets will reorient around Russian natural resources.
but they don't have the capability to impose regime change because that requires fighting a ground war which could escalate into total WW3 involving Russia and North Korea as well. In that situation even if they "win", their homeland becomes a charred cinder and they'll have to really redefine what it means to "win". If they lose a ground war without escalation they'll be humiliated, tons of POWs will be taken and instead of a political win, it'll be a political draw at best.
The worst they can do without a ground war and regime change or nukes is sinking entire navy, seizing Taiwan and maybe bombing a little infrastructure.
That's not something that ends a government because China already experienced that before: 1st Sino Japanese War. Qing didn't even fall from that despite decades of prior weakness and humiliation, so why would PRC fall from that?
In addition they should consider the potential losses. Let's say they win the naval war but are mauled badly in the process, losing 5-6 CBGs and several forward bases. They decide to call it quits by just seizing Taiwan. What now? Any terms outside of seizing Taiwan can just be refused because they lack the ability to impose it. Unlike 1st Sino-Japanese War, China isn't importing ships, it still would have shipyards. All they can do that Japan couldn't in is impose total sanctions which would be ignored by Russia and tons of countries. They can't maintain an indefinite blockade on China, even GWOT strained their logistics and ship maintenance schedules, and that's without losing half their CBGs.
So even a "win", is at best a "draw".
