This is not an encouraging sign in the least. With increased Chinese military ability, and an increased need and willingness to take foreign oil resources, China is likely to be a major threat to the US and many other countries. Are we looking at the run-up to world war three? It’s not impossible. The one good thing that would occur in that case would be the closer work that we would undoubtedly be doing with Russia. This would be setting us up for a rerun of the second world war, in that we would be working with a previous rival against a common enemy. The article predicts Chinese interest in Russia’s Siberian oil fields, but it is unlikely that China would want to invade the most populous section of western Russia, following the mistakes of Napoleon and Hitler, though in the other direction. In the case of an American/Russian victory in a theoretical war with China (I believe such a war would be hard-fought, but ultimately successful, largely due to internal dissent in China and technical superiority on the side of Russia and the US), Russia would not be nearly as devastated as it was after the second world war, and would likely make for stiffer competition in a likely resultant cold war mimicking the one after WWII.
All this is speculative, of course, but it’s interesting to see the similarities between the current situation and the 1930s in Europe. One thing that should also not be forgotten is the suffering of the Chinese at the hands of the Japanese during the war, and the likely retribution that would be exacted in the case of Chinese expansion in the region.