China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly told the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas on July 3 that the country cannot afford for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine amid fears the U.S. would shift focus towards Beijing, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, citing sources familiar with the conversation.
There are alliances, but for a world war the major powers should all be directly involved. The biggest global powers are the USA, China, EU, Russia. Only one of them is directly involved in a serious war. In Ukraine the USA and Europe have been avoiding a direct involvement for a decade now.
The recent wars involving Israel only had minor involvement of western powers, mostly missile defense, and protection of shipping lanes. Israel has won decisively against Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria. The Houthis continue to be a nuisance and Hamas is restricted to small attacks. Some kind of ceasefire deal regarding Gaza becomes more likely by the day as both internal and external pressure mount on the Netanyahu government.
Hezbollah is seriously weakened. Lebanon has a new stronger government. Iran will take a decade to rebuild their strength. The Houthis can go back to killing Yemenis. If Hamas can recover is unclear, but it won’t be fast either. Syria is busy with getting their own affairs in order and even signaling possible peace with Israel.
The future for the Middle East looks almost promising I would say. Iran is weakened, cooperation and peace deals increase, several countries are tired of (civil) wars, Islamist Djihadism has lost wars and credibility.
I would bet on Russia trying to conquer Georgia, Armenia, or some other former Soviet country after a ceasefire or peace deal in Ukraine. Gotta keep that war economy going. Even then direct Western or Chinese involvement is unlikely.
Taiwan is a huge problem and a war would have huge global economic consequences. A huge air and naval war is certainly possible there involving China, Russia, and North Korea on one side against USA, NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and other Asian countries. The ensuing worldwide economic crisis and distraction of major powers could then trigger wars elsewhere.
A possible collapse, civil war, or break up of the USA could triggers lots of local wars where the US used be the dominant power. That includes all of Latin America, the pacific, but pretty much anywhere really.
Africa could also fall into some major wars caused by resource access, climate change, proxy wars, overpopulation, etc. Once industrialization really kicks off in Africa, major wars become more likely and deadly. The Congo and central Africa has lots of unresolved issues dating back to the previous Congo wars.
I think you’ve got an overly narrow view of “direct involvement.” If I’m in a war with someone and a country tells me “here, take these weapons” and I say “you know I’m going to use these weapons to kill soldiers of the country I’m at war with” and they say “yes, we know. We actually have some specific conditions about how and where you can use these to kill them, and some satellite photos to help you target them” then I’d call that direct involvement. Flesh-and-blood soldiers are only one small part of a nation’s military these days and not every part of a military needs to be involved for the military overall to be involved.
Delivering weapons is explicitly not taking part in hostilities according to international law.