General Pace surely understands that what his Chinese hosts told him is true but irrelevant:
"Clearly, both the United States and China have enormous military capacity, but equally clearly neither country has the intent to go to war with the other. So absent of intent, I don't find threat," Pace said.
"We should not focus on how to fight each other but how to prevent military action. That is what my government is focused on, and that is what my Chinese counterparts here have said their government is focused on."
Yes, we don't intend to attack China. And yes, China doesn't plan to fight us. We are so much stronger than China that we hope our strength deters China while China surely knows that a full-scale general war would end up with an American victory.
Yet this comforting story hides the real threat: China considers offshore Taiwan to be an internal issue that we should not be bothered with. And second, China hopes to grab Taiwan without fighting us. That is, China doesn't need to be stronger than America to win, just strong enough to keep us from intervening while we might successfully defend Taiwan. (And this problem--the supersonic, wave-skimming Sizzler--might delay us sufficiently if we fail to counter it so our carriers can approach Taiwan in time.)
The problem is, there is no absent of intent for China to seize Taiwan. They would obviously prefer to take Taiwan without fighting us. But regardless, China wants Taiwan. That is the threat.
