And nationalistic, at least at this moment in their history. I am continually surprised at how the mere mention of Taiwan draws anger in my Chinese business students. They view its quasi-independence as unfinished business, as I suspect many of China's higher strata view the 19th century humiliations that gave the Russians parts of Siberia. There is nothing new about this; nations that see themselves as rising have always wanted to assert their claim on what they see as their rightful share of world spoils. (Think Japan in the first half of the 20th century, Germany prior to the Franco-Prussian war, the U.S. during the Manifest Destiny era.)
The combination of a quarter-century of transformational growth (raising expectations for the continued accrual of national power), perceived historical grievances, a demographically weak Russia and Japan as neighbors, a political system, economy and social cohesion perhaps increasingly held together by bailing wire, a government in need of a diversion for public discontent, and all those excess young men, and it doesn't seem like a "peaceful rise," in the propagandistic government phrasing, is the most likely outcome.
I don't think this has all that much to do with the Communist Party at all. China has always thought of itself as the only civilized country around, and the rest of the world as barbarians. China's name for itself isn't the Middle Kingdom - it's the Central Kingdom - central as in the center of the world. It is China's destiny to conquer and a perversion of the natural order of things for it to be conquered. This is why land that has ever been Chinese territory needs to revert to Chinese control. What you are seeing over Taiwan is simply the tip of the iceberg.
Richard Pipes once said the Soviet Union was a strategic threat not because it was Communist but because it was Russian. I think the same thing holds for China - much like Hitler trying to revive the glory of the Roman Empire, China aims to revive the empire that reserved to itself the right to appoint the kings of the tributary states that existed in East Asia at China's pleasure. The Chinese would like to revive for China a bygone world in which the Emperor Qianlong (during the late 18th century) felt comfortable writing to King George III at the end of a letter rejecting his request for additional trading facilities: "Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!"