Japan is far from demilitarized. They are third in total military spending ( see http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2067rank.html ), some would argue second as they believe the US numbers for China are overstated for obvious reasons. And according to this site (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_arm_for_per) they have the 20th largest standing army. In short, it is a high tech military that goes by the name of "Self Defense Force." It is one of the best militaries in the world.

I've also read elsewhere (I'd look it up, but it makes perfect sense, so I'll leave that to doubters) that given the Japanese technological infrastructure they are probably only about six weeks away from being able to produce nuclear weapons.

Just thoughts to chew on.
David

Japan has a fairly potent military, ranking among the global top 5 in total defence budget. But countries don't go straight to a shooting war, and especially a nuclear war, without lots of steps before that. So maybe it's more realistic to think of which of the two countries, China or Japan, has the stronger capability to convince the other that it's willing to fight it out. Like America, the Chinese have fought plenty of wars over the past few decades (eg, with India and Vietnam) and so can probably sell war as an extension of politics. It's also a dictatorial regime with tight control of the media. And to top it off, the population at large has a strong sense of historical grievance against Japan.

In Japan, on the other hand, war is associated with defeat, deprivation, destruction and so on. For good reason, I might add. The threat of war would almost certainly cause a lot of today's nationalists to recalculate their positions. The hard-core nationalists would try to shout down dissent (as the Bushies did in the US), but that's hard to do in a media-saturated world.

So Japan would likely blink first. Let's hope these twits in charge here have run through the scenarios themselves, and know to avoid more pointless provocations. There are times when you have to fight, but only an amoral sleaze picks a fight and then sends other people's kids to die.