if i have to take my pick, does that mean that the actual info is not out there right ?
Essentially an assumptions game.
Now that we have established that, let go down the list.
1. GPS via Beidou satellites. If I am not mistaken, these satellites are only providing position, they are not targeting satellites.Right?
2. Active radar during terminal phase. - A possibility, although the technical hurdles of such an approach have been exhaustively presented. Even with the more advance radar one can possibly imagine, the approach has many weaknesses.
3. Infrared during terminal phase. - A slightly more robust method. It a lower potential system to start with, but the more robust one
4. Optical (via TV) during terminal phase. -- laughable.
5. Laser guidance via targeting by (stealth) drone. A technological possibility, unlikely though. A simple LWR would make the Drone long before any missiles get there.
These are all standard and proven terminal guidance systems. -- Yes, for once we agree. But not for such a weapon use as your favorite carrier killer missile.
6. Theoretically, if a Chinese submarine or SOSUS has triangulated the acoustic location of the carriers then the data can be relayed to a missile and inertial guidance may be sufficient. After all, some of the 100 missiles should strike the carrier if the CEP is sufficiently reasonable or an "area effect" warhead like flechettes are used.
you are just forgetting that the carrier would have moved about 13Km in the meantime. That is a large distance.
7. Theoretically, a warhead can act like an anti-radiation missile and home in on the carrier's electromagnetic radiation (e.g. emitted radar or radio communications).
perhaps, but that would mean it has a seeker far more advanced than anything currently out there. I am not saying it is not possible, but if such a seeker existed we would have seen smaller versions in advanced anti radiation missiles from china. Perhaps I have missed it, but I don't remember that.
