Ping!
I have this nightmare belief, that one day, we're going to wake up, and out of the blue we'll see the Chinese on our western coast with a full-fledged invasion and we won't be prepared for it.
RE: Japanese officials are considering elevating the Self-Defense Agency to a ministry and renaming Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force as the Japanese Army; same for the navy and air force. Shedding those postwar names would reflect Japan's emergence from its pacifist cocoon.
Yeeeeeee ha! Long overdue, IMHO!
All they need to do is buy off enough Taiwanese politicians, and their #1 goal will be accomplished without firing a shot. China wants to dominate Asia, not destroy the US. First strike scenarios make good fiction, but the Chinese are much more subtle than that.