Why attempt to invade them? --- "undersea gas deposits, and ownership of East China Sea islands."
???
China will have to protect it's flank by establishing a security sphere across the Pacific the same way Japan did in WW2. There's only one stradegy that plays in the Pacific; island warfare. They'll probably take Hawaii, Australia and the Eastern Pacific too before they're stopped.
hi esther ruth, not only for the above mentioned reasons would china love to own japan, but in chinas view, ww2 was a humiliation of all humiliations. payback is desireable in chinas eyes. but the biggest prize of all would be the technology transfer, wow, nothing on this scale has ever happened before. one day you are a rodent climbing around a cesspool trying to look up and the next day you are equal to the usa in technology, a very worthwhile gamble in my book.
That, and a long standing hatred between the Chinese and the Japanese.