Economic Sanctions- possible, but only effective with Allies and a clear set of demands on what it takes to lift the sanctions UN Resolution- China is a veto holding member of the security council, not happening Boots on the ground- not worth it, even morally. A ground war with China will kill hundreds of thousands at a minimum.

A ground war with China will leave most of the United States a nuclear crater.

From Google results:

"China is estimated by the Federation of American Scientists to have an arsenal of about 260 total warheads as of 2015, which would make it the second smallest nuclear arsenal amongst the five nuclear weapon states acknowledged by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons."

"As of 2017, the U.S. has an inventory of 6,800 nuclear warheads; of these, 2,800 are retired and awaiting dismantlement and 4,018 are part of the U.S. stockpile. Of the stockpiled warheads, the U.S. stated in its April 2017 New START declaration that 1,411 are deployed on 673 ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers."

EDIT: No one wins, it's who loses the least. The whole point of having them is so the other person doesn't use theirs.

> No one wins, it's who loses the least.

Which is also no one. Whether or not humanity is completely wiped out, this is an extinction-level event, and the entire nation-state system that spawned it becomes meaningless in the aftermath.

Additionally China's arsenal's cumulative megatonnage is ~294 MT (as of 2009) whereas the US's cumulative megatonnage is ~1430 MT (as of 2014).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_weapons_of_m...

Obviously assuming an avoidance of nuclear escalation, which it is very much in China’s interest to avoid- best estimates say China has less than 300 weapons, not all of which have delivery systems capable of reaching the US and many are potentially targetable by for counterforce strikes. Still an absolutely horrendous toll to pay for an escalation.

The US in contrast has 4000 active warheads, with at least 1300 on capable ballistic misfile delivery vehicles. If used in a countervalue attack, the Chinese would cease to exist as a relevant people.

Which as a long way of saying the US can escalate more than the Chinese, but actually getting into an open and direct conflict is a morally horrific idea.

That’s like saying Arnold and Carl are standing waist deep in a pool of gasoline. Arnold has 4000 matches, Carl has 300. Who’s going to survive the fire?

These things only work when there's a large asymmetry in power, otherwise the cost is too high. US >> N.Korea, US >> Iran. China's too powerful and important to do anything serious, we will have to likely deal with this on a case-by-case basis like we do Saudi Arabia, hopefully generating enough soft pressure and potential inflammation that they become fearful of creating a Khashoggi incident.

The US would break its sanctioning tools if it took on China unilaterally with sanctions, but if they managed a coalition that included the EU and a few others it could work.

This would require the USA being a lot more willing to act co-operatively with other countries than its present leadership seems capable of.

It would also include the EU showing a lot more backbone than they usually do. Just look at the Russian sanctions and how natural gas is pitches from Russia by the EU.

Absolutely true.