Agreed. There's always a chance that one will blunder into a war, but unless one nation really wants a war, wars tend not to happen. In World War I both Germany and France wanted war, for largely the same reasons. In World War II Germany and Japan wanted war to remove barriers to their expansion, and if one nation/side really wants war it will inevitably get war. In this case I suspect neither side wants a war, but both want the resources. I think there's a pretty good chance of China firing on and even sinking a Japanese warship without actually starting a war. Considering that Japan is so much smaller and is such a good ally of the USA, the chances of such a war escalating into a world war are too high for even China to lightly start it. The Falklands War is a sterling example of how a war involving even our staunchest allies does not necessarily mean a war for us.
Agreed. The point of painting a target with targeting radar is just that - to make them nervous, raising the potential cost of their action and/or location.
All of this, and well said. Red China can move its production to wartime products or domestic consumption when it wishes; as the USA proved in World War II it's a lot easier to repurpose production and workers than to create them from whole cloth. They have already made the USA only a third or less of their exports, so that isn't keeping them from starting a war. Rather, they don't want a war, they want the resources, and they want them as cheaply as possible. China obviously wants to remain as dominating in manufacturing as possible for as long as possible, but they must also reward the Chinese people with a higher standard of living, so it's inevitable that Chinese labor costs will continue to rise. Already in major cities the labor costs of highly skilled manufacturing workers are at near-parity with American workers, which is one big reason we're starting to see some manufacturing come back.
China has a sixth of the world's population and now has the technological base to support them, so it's inevitable that they supplant us as the world's superpower even if we weren't in decline. That doesn't mean a war with us soon, or even necessarily a war with us ever. It might mean a war with Japan at some future date when the US can no longer protect them, but even that's far from certain. Japan may back down or the two nations may even find a way to harmoniously share the resources.