The real problem is that success or failure, the real damage is poisoning 1/6 of the world's population against you for a generation or more. What kind of world will that be? If every Chinese kid is taught from birth the U.S. is hellbent on keeping them in second place (which is exactly what looks like now, regardless of what previous administrations thought or how much CCP spin is put on it - the propaganda writes itself these days).
This is exactly the narrative that is held in the mind of every Chinese about the Opium War and the downfall of the late Qing and the Japanese. These things have long historical memories and human grudges really can span generations and generations (look at Hungry for instance).
From there it's very slippery slope to a race war, i.e. Chinese vs Anglos, I can easily imagine confiscating ethnic Chinese property in the U.S. and putting them internment camps in the next twenty years and attacks against the "whites" in China.
Ultimately this is about how to co-exist and share resources on this planet so we can solve problems on the planetary scale. Otherwise we will just become one of those species in this universe that failed to launch because they destroyed themselves on their own planet before inventing starflight.
This is exactly the narrative that is held in the mind of every Chinese about the Opium War and the downfall of the late Qing and the Japanese. These things have long historical memories and human grudges really can span generations and generations (look at Hungry for instance).
From there it's very slippery slope to a race war, i.e. Chinese vs Anglos, I can easily imagine confiscating ethnic Chinese property in the U.S. and putting them internment camps in the next twenty years and attacks against the "whites" in China.
Ultimately this is about how to co-exist and share resources on this planet so we can solve problems on the planetary scale. Otherwise we will just become one of those species in this universe that failed to launch because they destroyed themselves on their own planet before inventing starflight.