China doesn’t actually want a war, nor do they want to give any indication that they want to escalate tensions.

China stands the most to gain in a peaceful world order where they never have to use their military. Their military doctrine is defensive in nature, as is their nuclear doctrine (which, contrary to US/Russian policy, explicitly prohibits first-strike capability).

With a peaceful world order, relations with Taiwan can be normalized and the economy can continue to grow without impediment. Without the threat of encirclement and invasion, China doesn’t have much means to justify their military budget (given that they are already regionally superior and have no real global power projection capability) and would see much more domestic backlash to their rapidly expanding military. China’s core domestic geographical goals are to secure a more robust supply of O&G, secure the Himalayas as their southern border against potential Indian aggression, and prevent Xinjiang from devolving into a humanitarian crisis as it tries to integrate the (previously) predominantly rural Xinjiang population into the urbanized world that China has created.

When US-China relations were better back in 2018, the US even helped Chinese interests by striking ETIM training camps near the border between China and Afghanistan.