Sure, there's always a chance, and China's chance is better than Russia's. There's a chance the other great power authoritarian country with a lack of freedom, Russia, could beat Ukraine, even without using nukes.
When people don't like to discuss what they call platitudes is because they will not benefit. The US has endless problems, with 400+ years of racism, slavery, denial of institutional racism, then our destruction and the big lie about Iraq, and finally Afghanistan had a different situation but still managed to screw that up. My friend who recently moved back to Taiwan to retire will probably also have an interesting viewpoint on such things. "Please don't kill me, China" might describe his views. He thinks (hopes?) there won't be a war because the west will help protect Taiwan.
Edit - the us has a lot more years than 200 of racism, updated that comment.
