I don't think you're going to see navy-to-navy on the high seas. The U.S. focus is on undoing or meeting what it calls Chinese “anti-access” capabilities. They have come up with a new capability, called “anti anti-access”. This means getting access to the very waters that China is concerned about, the waters near China. It will be in the forward areas and it may not be just ship-on-ship. The Chinese have a tremendous land-based anti-naval, anti-access capability.
On February 7th, 2017. See this statement in context.