Let’s say all of the leftists and Chinese propagandists (redundancy alert) are right, and our military equipment would get utterly smoked by the PLA in a head to head fight. Still, all we have to do is either by ourselves or with help from (or even if we don’t help they can accomplish this on their own) India, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam put destroyers, subs, etc in the Gulf of Oman, Indian Ocean, Straights of Malacca, South China Sea and Philippine Sea (out of range of most Chinese warships) and put an embargo on oil tankers going to China and China would deindustrialize and go into famine in 6 months.
The USA is (or could very easily be) a net exporter of oil and oil products. The whole world could embargo us for oil and while it might become more expensive we won’t run out for the foreseeable future. Assuming our politicians would allow us to extract it.
China imports 75-80% of their oil needs. 75-80% of their imports come from the Middle East. The rest comes from eastern Russian pipelines. Well over half of their total oil imports come through the longest, most easily interdicted trade route in the world. To get from the Middle East to China you have to pass through either the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden or the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman both of which have massive choke points. Then you have to pass by India (not friendly to China) to get to the next choke point at the Straights of Malacca which takes you past Indonesia and Malaysia (not friendly to China). Then you can finally get to the South China Sea but you still have to sail past Vietnam (very not friendly to China) and the Philippines (American ally) before you can get to a friendly port.
Put a stop to just middle eastern oil and China grinds to an economic halt. Russia and China have never been allies really, and they won’t be especially motivated to crank up the pipeline exports. But even if they do, a few well placed sabotage charges or cruise missiles would slow those flows long enough that china would collapse.
And that ignores the demographic issues facing China that will cripple their ability to thrive too.
