The chinese can afford trully awful losses in any future conflict.The P hillipines even if they had the support of Vietnam,Taiwan,Japan,South Korean,Australia and obviously the US cannot afford the attrition rates that the chinese can take.Simple math says that China can take in an all out war across East Asia at least 20+ million dead and still come out on top.The US could sustain at most 6 million dead before social tensions started to rip the country apart and all the other east asian countries can sustain maybe 12 million before attrition started to destroy their societies.Of course neither the chinese or their probable enemies want to go that far but then again no one wanted WW1 to turn out like it did.China can win by simply conscripting 100+ million and sending them on a campaign of conquest across South East Asia and East Asia ignoring the horrible losses.Of course the trick is both sides want to win without going that far that is probably the reason hostilities have not yet started.The US the most it could ever call up before social tensions exploded on the home front is about 50 million,Japan maybe 8 million,South Korea,Taiwan, about 5,Australia 4,The Phillipines maybe 5,Vietnam 5,other countries could add 6–7 and that is assuming they can mobilise that many.So the chinese can win by attrition.Someone might say there is no record in world history of anyone mobilising these kind of troops true but that doesn’t mean it cannot be done.Most likely these figures would not be reached but anyone planning for a future contigency in East Asia has to take into account such a possibility and realise what a trully horiffic war there might be.Something on a scale no one has ever seen.