China's casualty tolerance and the purpose of a war

Does the legacy of the one-child policy make China particularly sensitive to military casualties?

The demographic concern is accepted. The proposed qualification is that public support and casualty tolerance would differ between the India-China border conflict and a war framed around Taiwan.

The death of an only child can leave parents without their expected source of support, giving military casualties a wider family cost. That concern is accepted as part of the one-child policy's demographic and social legacy. The political purpose of a conflict also affects how losses are received in this assessment. Border fighting with India is characterised as a conflict requiring public justification. A Taiwan campaign is expected to command a different level of public support. That prediction does not establish how families would actually respond to losses in such a war.