What makes you think they don't want the US involved?
What makes you think the US is currently able to involve itself? We're stretched pretty thin at the moment.
Were both Nuclear powers for one thing and historically China has never been interested in anything that was not considered China at one point or another in its past.
That and the Chinese military does not think it has the capability to defeat us yet, and yes they said that. However they are working on getting to a point where they feel they could and I canÂ’t remember if they said mid-2013 or mid-2014 as an estimate but they were, if I remember correctly fairly sure about mid-2015 (however this assumes we have little or no advancement). But that does not mean they would attack anyone if pushed. They like much of the rest of the planet is a little scared of us, we are a bit crazy at the moment on the world stage invading various countries and China has never ever been able to figure out why we care what goes on within the borders of another country.
They do not want war with us because that would destroy both their economy and ours and we owe them a lot of money. China is not the aggressive nation many in the USA feel it is in and, if nothing else, they tend to be real concerned about their economy. And they would be just as happy becoming the #1 economy on the planet and making us a second world nation, probably more so actually
But here is the thing, China has played the Eastern part of the world for years, they have controlled a whole heck of a lot more than people know, hell they controlled a vote in Taiwan by sending in ships, flying jets around and say don't vote for that guy. As soon as the guy they told everyone not to vote for got back into office...they took their ships and planes and went home happy they got the guy they wanted back in office.
You can never look at what is going on with China from the point of view of a western power because it has never been that direct. Read Sun Tzu the Art of War and you will pretty much get the way the government approaches just about everything.
I have been watching this for a while now and wondering why China was doing so much Sabre rattling and why were they showing off their military so much when they never did that before. Then after some studying (job related) I find that I tend to feel it is, as always subterfuge. They are working real hard on Cyber warfare capabilities and if we are also worried about the standing military and the saber rattling that we see nothing else. That gives then a lot of free time to work on their Cyber capabilities. This is pure speculation but based on the history of China and the region, it is the only thing that is making sense to me.
You can say what you want and I will not get into an argument here or even much more discussion but China does not want war with the US any more than the US government wants war with China.
And you are right, we are stretched pretty thin and that is a good reason for us to not want to be at war with China. But even if that meant we were going to sit this one out or look for a diplomatic solution, I doubt China would do anything unless seriously provoked.. by their definition not ours..that is of course if they are not the same and I am guessing they are not