Nuke a couple of cities and inform them we will keep it up until we eradicate the Chinese race from the face of the earth.
China has ICBMs (both fixed and mobile) and SLBMs. You nuke a couple of their cities, they nuke a couple of our cities. That is how nuclear deterrence works.
No thanks.
Look at the numbers. We have 300 million people. We lose a couple million. China is eradicaded from the earth. We win.
No, you need to look at the numbers.
China is estimated to have a couple hundred nuclear warheads, so we lose tens of millions of people. Most of the large cities in the United States get hit. Even if we wipe China off the face of the earth we are set back decades as a global economy and political/military force, and end up as a severely weakened superpower with a depleted military and decimated infrastructure.
Losing Los Angeles, DC, Chicago, San Diego, Philadelphia, New York, Phoenix, Houston, Boston, Dallas, Denver etc. is not a win if the reason for your war is being pissed off about lost jobs and intellectual property.