>>2191358 (lb)
Go after them economically. Like declaring a trade war and burying them in new regulations. (See: The Oriental Mode of Production section of Das Kapital, Karl Marx). Raise energy prices. Become the leading energy exporter in the world. Sabotage OBOR projects by using third-world corruption against them. That's Phase I.
THEN, you scare them into dumping their vast holdings of US debt by getting Russia to do it first. They need cash for higher energy costs, now, and since China has virtually no oil or gas, that's a big deal. They have a slowing economy, a belligerent trade partner, and rising costs, now figured in real petrodollars. Layoffs and shutdowns will start sometime late this year, as US Christmas retail sales on goods from China are hit by tariffs. (Chinese economy is already courting recession, BTW).
Push them into a panic mode where they make a Gulf of Tonkin kind of mistake before they are ready. Phase II.
As the war drums sound and diplomacy over NK and Taiwan, and the South China Sea increases, sudden sanctions in response to bellicose moves hit the economy even harder. That's when you start encouraging the separatist movements.
China is not homogenious. The Manchus, Tibetans, Uiger, and other non-Han Chinese make up a decent portion of the outlands in China. Most of them had their own countries for thousands of years and resent Chinese dominion. More, many Red Army officials are highly corrupt, due to how the Red Army is financed. It would take about a hundred good con-men and a few million bucks to spark a number of separatist movements, just as China's economy is crumbling under the stress.
'Cause here's the thing: We like China's cheap goods. China NEEDS our market in order to sustain its levels of growth. Europe and Russia just don't have the same levels of consumer demand as we do, nor the money to blow it on Chinese crap. They also NEED our innovation. The Chinese can refine the crap out of the manufacturing process, but they rarely innovate. That wasn't a big deal during the hard core Chicom days, but now when half the population is involved in exports, in one way or another, dropping a few percentage points off of GDP means MILLIONS of unemployed in a state that promises full employment.
Phase III caps off with a military engagement long before they are ready for one. Likely over the SC Sea installations, the first time that the PRC tries to interfere with shipping there they'll get a visit from two or three aircraft carrier groups . . . from us alone. Japan has a big Navy for a pacifist country. India's navy is growing. Staging an event as pretext for an intervention that frustrates China's ambitions in regards to Taiwan . . . and possibly fragments China into smaller states. That would require some defections and betrayals by Red Army and senior Party officials, but if Xi is humiliated and loses the Mandate of Heaven over the event, such fragmentation could easily take place.
I'd say we're just at the start of Phase II. Phase III within 3 years.