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I think Australians get a little hysterical about China. The Chinese have never had grand overseas territorial ambitions, certainly not as far as Australia. I don’t even think they’re particularly concerned about US/UK/allied military bases in Australia, since they have so many potential foes much, much closer.
Also, it’s very unclear that a limited military defeat in a South China Sea confrontation over Taiwan results in a full withdrawal of American forces from the Pacific. In fact, I think it’s very unlikely such a thing happens. I don’t think the US would pull nuclear weapons from South Korea, or that the Koreans would ask them to leave. I don’t think they’d withdraw from Japan either. Even though it would be a major blow to US authority and influence, these countries don’t have better options and kowtowing to China would still be worse.
The domestic blow to American identity would be more severe than the geopolitical implications.
China is about 60x more populous than Australia, they have nuclear weapons and the allies we rely on for security are all even further from us than China is. A little hysteria is not unreasonable.
Sure, a limited US defeat wouldn't be so bad. But a resounding defeat for the US, as you said, (or a rather big win for China as I said) would cause significant political changes in the US. Are we talking coups, civil war, prolonged insurrections, a decade of disaster like Russia's 1990s? I guess the big question is how decisive this war is and how resilient the US is.
Is it tenable to keep nukes in South Korea if Korea is effectively cut off from the US? The Soviets didn't manage to keep nukes in Cuba.
Furthermore, China is and should be concerned about Australia. Australia is where the iron ore is, where the coal is, where a non-trivial amount of surplus food production is.
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