It would also be a world war at that point, so, I don't know that their plans would be restricted to US targets.
China knows that the cost would be devastating for them and the larger world economy as well, for the reasons you said. It would be at least a decade or two until the world economy recovered.
But China seems able and willing to play the long game in ways that the US (with our shorter election cycles) fundamentally cannot and if they are thinking strategically they know that this is one of their key advantages for this sort of conflict. I am not entirely sure that they wouldn't be willing to trade, say, 10-20 years of darkness (Cultural Revolution-style?) for 100 years of Chinese world supremacy atop a new world order.
It would also be a world war at that point, so, I don't know that their plans would be restricted to US targets.
China knows that the cost would be devastating for them and the larger world economy as well, for the reasons you said. It would be at least a decade or two until the world economy recovered.
But China seems able and willing to play the long game in ways that the US (with our shorter election cycles) fundamentally cannot and if they are thinking strategically they know that this is one of their key advantages for this sort of conflict. I am not entirely sure that they wouldn't be willing to trade, say, 10-20 years of darkness (Cultural Revolution-style?) for 100 years of Chinese world supremacy atop a new world order if (huge if) they thought it was achievable.
But they are also not dumb, and won't fight a war they can't win.
So China dosen't have time on it's side. A hot war in one of the most busy regions would likely immediately cause a global recession as supply chains collapse, and the US can blockade oil and resources from the Middle East. This isn't like sanctions, if it goes on long enough. And remember that America can continously target and destroy their infrastructure and naval dockyards, China cannot. They've got great industrial capacity, but this war likely won't last long enough for them to actually finish building new ships, if the facilities even exist by then.
Well, some Chinese nationalists argue that strikes on the mainland will cause the CCP to start firing nukes at West Coast in retaliation as some sort of "city-trading" game, and that the Chinese will be more willing to sacrifice millions than the Americans at that, but we'll see if we get to that.