China will win the long game, because they can. They have the willpower (across all levers of national power) to do what is neccessary to take what they want now, and wait 50+ years til everyone who remembers it is dead.
That is an incredibly presumptuous thing to assume and it doesn't take into account some of the huge challenges as a nation China faces over the next 50 years, HSCS has already pointed out perhaps their biggest one. There are plenty of other challenges for them to include some it can't change, like geography.
Concur. Which is why they are addressing 2 resource needs with 1 strategy: Acquire huge areas of ocean that happen to be rich in both hydrocarbons and seafood. Feed your people fish, warm their homes with nat gas, and fuel their cars. And coerce/ bully/ fight/ tax (shipping)/ or ignore those who oppose you.
Yeah, they really aren't exactly 'acquiring' it. It is a big sea with lots of players and with a huge part of the world's sea traffic going through it, best of luck to China trying to tell all of them it's theirs now.