In the scenarios I think most likely the carriers would be sunk while they are supposed to be defending Taiwan, or 'saving' Taiwan for a Chinese occupation. In that situation we would go to war, but the damage would be done and the US loses the veneer of the sole world super power. I also don't have a lot of faith in a Navy that runs into its own ships and a commercial tanker, but that's a different story.
OK, so they sink a carrier in the opening phases.
I think we'll be OK.
Now, add in that we have a dozen or so carriers just sitting there, in places like Bremerton, mothballed and turnkey'd.
They sink one of ours, there will be a moment of "You did what?" and then the US comes wading back in.
Even if we lost four taking out their two, once those two are gone, they're gone. The rest of the US Fleet will jump up and down on the rest of their shitty fleet like power-ups are going to pop out of their burning ships, meanwhile we're doing offshore bombardment on their shitty coastal cities, since that's primarily what China is. Those islands get mowed under by the Marines actually making the first amphibious landing they've done in nearly a century, backed up by the Navy, and after that, well...
The trick is to retaliate without eating a nuke on CONUS.
Of course, once that happens, it'll go from 1.2 billion Chinamen to a couple dozen million, and nothing of value will be lost. Russia can roll in and take up what isn't radioactive, and the world is a better place.
People like to overestimate the US strength, even now after Afghanistan and I'm not sure why. Ignoring the demographic changes our military force has seen, we know the people in charge are politicians not military minds. And anytime you give someone 30+ years time to counter your main strength... probably enough time. Afaik the US military strategy hasn't changed for decades. And it shows.
I think a lot of people under-estimate the US military strength because since 1991 we haven't really flexed at all.
If everyone looks at Afghanistan and Iraq as how it will go fighting against an actual nation state with population, industry, infrastructure, and politicians, that's like looking at a deer being hit by a VW and saying that the same deer would cave in the front of a high speed frieght train.
It doesn't work.
How did Korea go? I bet we really kicked some Chinese ass!
In the three year Korean War, an estimated 3 million Koreans died, mostly civilian, and killed
nearly 1 million Chinese troops. The US lost almost 34,000 service members and more than 105,000 were wounded.
A roughly 29 to 1 K/D rate.
And that was with a surprise attack in the middle of logistics problems in the middle of winter for the surprise attack.