I agree. But there is a risk, that is if Japan tries to pursue nuclear weapons. China must absolutely step up espionage to ensure this doesn't happen.
I think that not only will Japan pursue nuclear weapons, but that China is counting on it, as any such moves by Japan will give China iron-clad justification for first massive economic sanctions and embargo’s, which will then ultimately culminate in a war of total conquest.
In fact, I would say it’s entirely possible that this pretext will be used irrespective of whether Japan actually does press ahead for nukes.
China will issue an intelligence briefing to the UN that it has information Japan is moving towards a nuclear weapon. It will demand full IAEA inspections, America will veto it. China will demand Japan allow its own inspectors full access, which Japan will angry deny, and thus China has its casus belli for war that the Chinese people and overwhelmingly majority of the global south and even many within the west will believe and accept.
With this ultimate card to play, China can afford to continue to give Japan chance after chance only for Japan to keep spitting in China’s face. All the while China will accelerate its military prep, economic de-coupling and industrial strangulation of Japan in preparation. By the time China is ready to move, it’s population would already be utterly infuriated with years of non-stop escalating Japanese insults and provocations that the nuclear weapons revelation will make war the only acceptable option.
The only real question now is how long the final war prep will be for. The smart money is 3 years, so I think we will see a lot of activity starting to yield fruits in the next year or two. But I think Beijing will be under no illusions about the scale and scope of this war, especially if America gets involved as China must assume to be the case. So the 3 year mark won’t be the peak output period where you see masses of new hardware commissioned with limited follow up. Instead it will be the tip of the iceberg where a decent amount of hardware will be added, but there will also be even more assets still in construction. This will be across the board, but most evident in naval warship construction, as you will have a decent number of carriers, destroyers and subs commissioned, but far more will still be under construction in the shipyards. This will serve as both replacements for battle losses and strategic reserve to increase fleet numbers to supercharge the PLA for the next phase of the war, but it will also serve as a giant strategic misdirection making Japan and America think China won’t press for war for years yet as they will not believe China will move with all that hardware still under construction. The reality is that China would have long passed the assets it needs for Japan, the fleets still being built are for America should they unwisely involve themselves in this fight.
