There is no doubt that the ChiComs are very concerned about Japanese

remilitarization, and the potential for a regional arms race is there.

However, I think there are grounds for insouciance. Both these countries

are in process of demographic implosion. The Japanese (median age 42.0 ) are much further along the

road than the Chinese (31.5), but now that China’s boom generation of the

1960s is through having kids (well, my personal household representative of

that generation tells me SHE is), China’s median age is headed upward.

Urban Chinese, at least, have thoroughly internalized the one-child policy

now, and very few of them relish the prospect of their “little emperor”

going off to get killed in a war. Looking ahead 15-20 years to a possible

Sino-Japanese war, it may have to be fought on the shuffleboard court.