I think there's already a cold war between China and the West, with Russia playing a fairly insignificant role. And this cold war might help prevent a conventional war with China if the US is successful in imposing trade restrictions on the US and the rest of the world regarding sharing high tech with China - a major part of this cold war.
Currently the US has significant superiority in such things as long range early detection, identification, and tracking of individual elements of airborne enemy forces. If the US is able to maintain this strategic high tech superiority China is less likely to try its luck if things start turning south in terms of maintaining peace.
On the other hand if China catches up with conventional weaponry so the two sides become even, there is a much greater risk of this current cold war turning hot, which of course carries a much greater risk of catastrophic intercontinental nuclear war.
