Will a future POTUS attack the Chinese mainland in a future war?

I believe that China is more likely to neutralize itself internally rather than us trying to neutralize the threat. China is a fragile state in my opinion that is heavy populated in the littoral regions. With 1/3 of the world's population in the subcontinent area (India to China), the next issue will be water rights to the water off the Himalayan Plateau.

I suspect a war with China would be one of physical containment with economic and digital attacks being the primary "mainland" assault. A conventional attack on mainland China would be insanity anyway. They can't arm them all, but they could field a loyal defense force roughly the size of the entire population of the US in a pinch. We simply couldn't carry enough bullets and would probably lose on attrition alone.

None of that matters anyway. China, from a cultural standpoint, would probably not hesitate to use nuclear weapons. They would not suffer defeat lightly and I wonder if they'd tolerate an invasion at all, even if they're going to win. Hell, I'm not sure ANY nuclear nation would act otherwise, which is a big reason none of us have fought each other in open warfare since Korea.

LTC Bink Romanick - Colonel; If the Chinese leadership feel threatened by the potential outcome of an actual attack then the Chinese leadership will use all weapons at its command to negate the effectiveness of that attack.

This might include "defensive nukes" against the actual invading forces on Chinese territory, and/or "defensive nukes" against the support vessels for the actual invading forces on Chinese territory, and/or "defensive nukes" against the supply/staging areas for the actual invading forces on Chinese territory and/or the follow on troops, and/or "defensive nukes" against the sources of supply for the actual invading forces on Chinese territory and/or the follow on troops, and/or "defensive nukes" against command and control points for the actual invading forces on Chinese territory and/or the follow on troops.

One interesting tactic which the PLA could use would be to allow the invading forces to land, unopposed, and then simply nuke them out of existence on Chinese soil.

The political ramifications when the government of the invading country has to tell its population that it has lost 100% of the invading force would NOT be something any rational person would want to have to deal with.

Anything less that an actual invasion would have international political ramifications which would be equally obnoxious.