I like Orwell, but people schematize real things into his examples too much, especially 1984. It's better to pay attention to the real thing as it is.
For instance, I think it's a serious possibility that China will mainly use economic power to expand its empire, by using markets to foster dependency in ways you can't really do if you've swallowed free market propaganda and your main motive is profit. The end goal could be something like China at the center of the world, with its ideology and system having prestige and setting the standard, surrounded by clearly-subordinate tributaries. That'd be great if your main ideological commitment is to Chinese nationalism, but not so great if you care about anything else.
Then the question is: what are your commitments and which empire is closer to them?
Also, it's not exactly the US, since the US has a different underlying ideology, and US's commitment to free markets was successfully exploited by the Chinese in a way I don't think they'll be dumb enough to repeat.
China gives you the illusion it can target its people toward enemies, but the truth is we dont care all that much to "expand an empire". We'd do the minimum if forced, as always.
If we could first make Hong Kong happy, that'd be a good first step :D
Blaming war preparation on totalitarianism...
Do you know why CCP geared up military? Because the bombimg on Chinese embassy by US [1] and war plane collision off Chinese border [2].
That scared the shit out of CCP. It just shows that US always retain military option against them. And plant the deepest resentment towards US in Chinese citizens. CCP literally need to actively suppress the anti US sentiment to avoid affecting the business relationship.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the...