The Malacca straits will certainly be important, but the US will have to reach past China and Chinese allies to the south to blockade it, and will be sitting ducks for drone and missile attacks (see the black sea fleet for a demonstration). China has heavily invested in submarines to avoid exactly this situation.
Authoritarianism in China has a significantly different flavor to US authoritarianism. The US is serving the goals of their dominant elite industries - finance and tech. China has an engineering culture amongst the elite, and is inclined to solve problems with productivity and megaprojects rather than handing money to purely extractive industries.
For an example of the difference between their flavors of authoritarianism and the outcomes they bring, compare their health care systems - the USA has one of the most expensive in the world at ~$14,500 per capita, and poor outcomes due to privatized corruption, while China's 14th 5-year plan has brought universal health care for approx ~$650 per person. China's average life expectancy is higher than the US's.
The US is, objectively, extremely corrupt, and is transitioning to authoritarianism to protect that corruption. China's authoritarianism achieves measurable goals, and has broad (though not universal) public support.
The USA will get curb stomped in a war. They just don't have anything but a massive military buildup from decades of pork barrelling unnecessary military contracts. Their population is sick and stupid. They have alienated their allies. They will lose.
> The US is, objectively, extremely corrupt, and is transitioning to authoritarianism to protect that corruption.
You have no idea what extreme corruption looks like if you think the US is it. (I will admit that it is becoming more corrupt, and that the corruption is tied to the authoritarianism.)
> Their population is sick and stupid.
Yeah... you're just ranting.
Not as corrupt as other countries is true. My rhetoric gets a little passionate, but is rooted in fact. Relative to their extreme wealth and political messaging, will 'very' corrupt do? 'Increasingly' corrupt, certainly. It's not tied to the authoritarianism, the health care system has been an international punchline for decades. The everyday systemic corruption (plus the 2008 bailouts) is in my opinion the cause of authoritarianism, the people were pushed to a populist.
Getting sicker: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6221922/
Getting stupider: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9
Obamacare is straight up porkbarrelling: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/apr/01/barack-oba...
The DoE's policy is to stop educating people unless it's profitable: https://www.propublica.org/article/education-department-publ...
I think we're going to see a substantial continual decline in both health and education outcomes as the system continues to be sabotaged, for money.
The most shocking part is qualitative though. As a non-American, having a conversation with an American about their politics is often stepping into a minefield of cognitive dissonance, patriotism, and blindness, from people who are otherwise wealthy and well-intentioned. Truly the most propagandized people. Such is the course of empire.