>>>> But, the idea of the US “stomping out” the PRC (or even somehow “just” rejecting it from Hong Kong) and installing its own preferred government is downright insane.

> Remember, the US's nuclear arsenal is far, far larger than China's. Such a conflict would be devastating to the US (and to many other places due to fallout), but China would cease to exist.

And if the US's war aim was to liberate the Chinese people from dictatorship, it would have failed miserably in that case, having destroyed them instead.