The saving grace is that China (well modern living CCP members) have never had an armed conflict. China's military ranks are people who got there by playing politics and bending exercises to their benefit rather than showing battlefield competence. There are no war vets or experienced players.

So while they might have incredible man power and manufacturing capability, everyone in that first battle will be seeing battle for the first time in their life.

China is even worse than Russia on that matter. Before the invasion to Ukraine, Russia was heavily involved in Syria, Chechnia and other conflicts and with that experience it failed miserably. China, with all its posturing, military wise is even worse than Russia. That's why all it can do is propaganda war on social media to weaken American society.

How is that "saving grace" in any way

The flip side is that the US isn't used to fighting anything other than asymmetric warfare / insurgencies / terrorism against people who can't project force and can't really hit back. We park valuable assets out in the open on military bases and installations around the world, and don't do anything to shelter them or even move them around during a conflict because of hubris.

Iran also basically just fought us to a stalemate, with an arguably long-term strategic victory going to Iran, just by being willing to absorb more punishment in the short term. Once we depleted our stocks of expensive weaponry we had to stop. We could win every fight and still lose the war.