The United States doesn’t need an open war with China. All they have to do is cut off food shipments and the Chinese people will get extremely pissed off at their own government.

And if a shooting war does break out, how well do you think the parents of dead Chinese soldiers are going to take it? Remember, most of these parents have one child, that’s it.

Any country that is unable to grow enough food to feed its people will always lose any trade war. Not getting the newest iPhone never killed anybody, on the other hand, not eating does tend make people dead.

Once the emperor loses that old “mandate from heaven”, the emperor loses his head.