t seems to me, that nations get into as much trouble when they seek to hold onto too much, than they do when they seek to take on more. I suspect that China realizes that expanding their economic reach and overall influence is far more productive than attempting to aggressively acquire some physical real estate and it immediately resistant populace. They have enough internal forces of resistance and revolution to contend with as is. In the future? That is different, but for us to obsess on the potentiality of this future game now is to risk losing out on the game that is actually currently in play.
So why is China so keen to expand and on fictitious grounds want to expand their Empire?