There's a lot of seesawing among the elites in regard to China. There seem to be two factions. One is what can be described as the American military-intelligence apparatus, i.e the state department, the CIA, the pentagon and NGOs, think tanks, and media orgs strongly affiliated with them, for example, the RAND Corporation, Fox News, and the AEI. They largely form what most people refer to as the ''Deep State''.

These people tend to be anti-china and favor a conflict with China. They don't like the idea of America no longer being the sole hegemon. Due to America's current superpower status, they at the moment get to flex muscle and exercise undue influence across the world. If the US was supplanted, that privilege would be lost.

The other faction is more plutocratic in nature. It's the tech companies, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, high finance led by BlackRock, and lastly, Hollywood. This faction is extremely anti-white, they have a soft spot for marxism and are more represented in the private sector. They have a more technocratic view of the world and are at the forefront of the globalist movement.

This faction is less anti-China. They do not seem to desire war or de-coupling with China. They profit immensely and gain to profit greatly(as in the case of finance and BlackRock), in China. Hollywood also frequently appeases the CCP to retain access to the Chinese market.

They also favor a more gradualist approach to China. Slowly poison their culture, infiltrate the government, fill it with ''western-educated''(read CIA-groomed) technocrats and seize control of their financial sector. This also entails forming alliances with China's neighbors and enemies to encircle her. and pressure her to acquiesce to US corporate infiltration. The recent AUKUS alliance, the pacific quad between the US, Japan, India, and Australia demonstrates this strategy. It's eerily similar to the British strategy of encirclement against Germany before WW1. Allying France and Russia for that purpose.

Xi Jinping seems to have taken a hard stance against this measure with his crackdown on sissy boys, audit of financial institutions, and reduction of freedom for capitalists. Whether this method can be successful anymore is debatable.

China for its part has strung the plutocrats along. They offer limited access to Blackrock and JP Morgan. They allow limited access to Hollywood and the NBA. Whether it's a sign of them submitting to the liberal faction of the US elite or simply using this to buy time, I do not know. I lean towards and hope for the latter.

The liberal faction is much more powerful than the conservative neocon faction and it pays well to keep them at hand.

The Anglo-Jewish elite of the Anglosphere can't seem to decide on a definite course of action. Historically, a dominant power at risk of losing its status to a rising star, always instigated war. The most famous example of this is the world wars. Britain instigated both of them as she could not tolerate the idea of a German-dominated Europe. Thus, she pursued a policy of encirclement against Germany and ultimately went to war.

However, in Britain, both the governmental elite aka the deep state and the plutocrats were in agreement over the need for war with Germany.

In the US the elites are split. No doubt, the existence of nuclear weapons and other WMDs like neurotoxins and bioweapons weigh heavily into this hesitancy.

However, recently there is reason to believe that they're leaning more towards military action. The US directly stationed troops in Taiwan in an unprecedented display of hostility. The US also has agreed to sell 60 billion dollars worth of nuclear submarines to Australia. Now, the declaration that it defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression. It's haunting similar to the British guarantee to Belgium in 1914. The troops in Taiwan are especially ominous. China really wants Taiwan back not due to civil war jargon but because of its strategic location.

If the US were to establish a firm military presence in Taiwan, it could use the island as an airbase to carry out strategic bombing of China and interdiction of its merchant traffic. This essentially places a ticking time bomb on Xi's lap. If he sits by, there is a risk that the US could steadily increase its presence and fortify the island to a point where it becomes nigh impossible for China to invade. This leaves it with the grim prospect of an American airbase just 150 km of its coast, capable of bombing its Southern industrial base to smithereens or destroying its ocean-going trade.

Militarily it's an open question of who will win. Against the US alone, China might win. The US has 11 carrier groups but at least four of those are in maintenance at any given moment. That leaves 7. However, it can't deploy all carriers as it must keep some back to defend the US home waters and the Persian Gulf.

At most, it could deploy 5 carriers to Taiwan. Each carrier can deploy 42 F/A-18 super hornets. The combat range of the super hornets is 700 km, so the carriers would be forced to stay within 300-400 km of Taiwan in order to provide combat patrols over the island. This would place them in range of Chinese air-launched and coastal ship-launched anti-ship missiles.

And then there's China's huge fleet of 600 ships, which are filled with short-range warships like missile boats, diesel attack submarines, and corvettes. These vessels are ideal for combat within Chinese waters.

So in any scenario, the US would be able to keep at most 210 4++ gen or above combat aircraft around Taiwan. This is a stretch considering half the US navy air fleet can't fly due to maintenance issues but let's assume they fix those problems somehow. That would leave them facing over 900 Chinese fighters of 4+ or 4++ gen caliber. Taiwan is only about 200 km from China, so the Chinese fighters would enjoy a comfortable sortie rate over Taiwan.

US aircraft would not only be heavily outnumbered but would also suffer from poor sortie rates. Carriers have far lower sortie rates than ground-based aircraft. So, China is likely to achieve air superiority over Taiwan.

Its long-range artillery and hordes of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles will likely destroy or suppress the Taiwanese air force on the ground. The US can't ship in sufficient ground troops to Taiwan either in quick notice, due to the danger of Chinese submarines. China has nearly 66 submarines.

So, in the first 3-4 months, China will have a window of opportunity to conquer Taiwan. They would be able to establish air superiority and assault the island with airborne and marine forces. Whether the Taiwanese have the will or strength to resist such an onslaught is debatable.

The addition of the Japanese, Australian, and British fleets would further add to the already existing US superiority in surface vessels but would do little to alleviate the air cover shortage. Only the British have aircraft carriers and the two carriers don't yet have their full complement of aircraft.

India can't assist the allies much either. Its border with China consists of the impregnable Himalayas mountain range and no offensive can pass through it.

And all this ignores a huge elephant in the room: the collapse of the US merchant marine. The US might not even be able to support a large force far away in surge conditions due to the depletion of its merchant navy due to high taxes, regulations, and other expenses.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2021/10/08/dwindling-us-merchant-fleet-is-a-crisis-waiting-to-happen/?sh=551d285b2a8d

But regardless, the US at the moment still has an advantage in military tech and has the best fighter aircraft in the world in the form of the F-35 and the F-22. The US also has a nuclear advantage over China.

It's all very murky now but only time will tell what the conflict between the eagle and the dragon will bring about.