That may be all be true, but I still don't see how it's in China's interest to get into an arms race with Japan. The Japanese have pretty much run the limits o

That may be all be true, but I still don't see how it's in China's interest to get into an arms race with Japan. The Japanese have pretty much run the limits of the "construction state", and are looking for public sector projects to employ people. China, on the other hand, has plenty of private sector jobs for the technically inclined. In the long term a powerful military must be backed by a powerful economy, so to the extent the Chinese are setting aside economic growth to militarize they're delaying future supremacy. And it especially doesn't make sense for Beijing to goad the Japanese into deploying nukes and long range missiles. There just isn't any scenario where that's beneficial to China's long term interests, and the Japanese public wouldn't tolerate a domestic nuclear weapons capability in the absence of Chinese bullying.