Wars are economic contests of attrition.
China cannot yet feed its own people without importing food. That's why the Chi-coms are buying US agricultural resources, including Swift Meats and farmland.
The Chi-coms are dependent upon the import of other natural resources, such as energy.
The China of 2024 is a corollary of the Japan of 1938 - a rapid industrializing and militarizing nation dependent upon imports.
To secure its place as a World Power, China needs to become economically self-sufficient and no longer dependent upon imports from competing powers.
China will seek to grow their empire via economic conquest and political conquest, first. They will seek to become economically or politically dominant in other nations to coerce them into the Chi-com sphere of influence.
Military conquest will only be used to secure resources that are conqured economically and politically, initially.
Military conquest will then be used to overtly seize strategic resources, strategic supply routes, and pre-emptively attack opponents' military resources.
China needs to secure its economic flanks before overtly challenging the West militarily. The Chi-coms will use North Korea as a proxy and a distraction for freezing Japan's, South Korea's, and America's military resources around the Sea of Japan as the Chi-coms make inroads towards the South China Sea.