American needs an enemy. Drugs, communism, terrorism, China. I guess without something to fear it would be hard to justify spending trillions on their military.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Generally I think most american military/state department people dont want China as an enemy but see a high chance of conflict if they invade Taiwan. Though under Trump I'm not sure we would defend Taiwan, we seem to be betraying Ukraine and other european allies