I think it is. As far as Java is concerned, T is Object in that context. It can't generate code for "allocate a T" because Foo only actually operates on Objects

I think it is. As far as Java is concerned, T is Object in that context. It can't generate code for "allocate a T" because Foo only actually operates on Objects, not Ts. That is, there will be one version of Foo, and that version will generate code to interact with Objects, not Ts. It can't allocate a T because the type of T is erased from Foo. That is type erasure.