I don't think that with the C19 pandemic going on with the destruction of jobs and income that we can say that the young have no real world experience. They are getting it in spades.
I wouldnt rely on General Summer to do the job here, plenty of extremely hot desert areas in China.
General Winter in Russia is a much more severe and longer term unit.
The only modern equivalent that you can make a comparison to the effect of trying to cross the desert is the Western Desert campaign in WW2. Most of the action was on the coastal strip of Africa and not in the interior. If the PLA wanted to land in the north and traverse the desert they would have to cover an area much much bigger than the Gobi desert. As far as I know a winter can be just as long and as severe as a summer. Logisitics was the problem for the Germans and the French (and the armies in North Africa), as it would be for the PLA crossing the GAFA.