I don't know if it's good or bad, but if it's just China vs Japan with no other nation trying to get a piece of the pie, Japan would get ROFL Stomped to the curb, not to mention China has a lot more nuclear weapon capacity than Japan, assuming Japan even has any, all it'd take is 1 hydro bomb.

And after doing that you assume the rest of the world would just be dandy and not feel threatened at all and forced to take action?

I just pray they arent as reckless as you would be in their place. That would result in millions of deaths and possible nuclear war. Nice strategy.

The chances of Japan and China going to war over these resource rich islands are pretty slim. However it's not to saw it will never happen as economically tied nations have gone to war against each other before. Also ascending or resurgent nations do tend to get quite assertive (Most well known being Germany & Japan during the 20th century for example, while Russia and China are both being quite assertive now).

One of China's great strengths was it's patience in it's rise to power. I believe in this case China is simply making a lot of noise to prevent Japan from actually doing anything to exploit the resources around the islands in dispute. Also I think China (along with other countries) can sense the US retreating somewhat from being the worlds self appointed policemen and getting her allies to do some of the work instead (but still providing logistical and intelligence support) while it get's back in shape. China still knows that it's military has a lot of catching up to do but if they follow the patient path they have been following then it's not inconcievable to think their military will rival or even displace US naval power from at least the Eastern Pacific region in the coming decades. Right now though the PLAN is just a brown water navy though it does have some pretty powerful ships, land based fighter jets and subs (mostly bought from Russia). The Chinese definately need to improve their submarine acoustic signature. Apparently it's about 2-3 decades behind Western and Russian submarines. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/china-submarines/ 

Hello there

In my opinion, you have gotten a number of things wrong in some of your posts in this thread (note, I am responding to you because you're debating in a reasonable manner, whereas some people are being obnoxious or stupid; it is not my intent to pick on you).

The first thing I would like to establish is that I fundamentally believe that China and Japan will not go to war in the forseeable future.  I certainly do not believe that the USA or China would go to war anytime in the next three decades by design (that is, if they went to war it would be because of a massive misunderstanding followed by a quick flare up).

Secondly, whilst Europe and America are currently facing substantial economic woe, it is important to remember that this is not (yet) having a negative impact on their military capabilities (though it may in future, as defense and procurement budgets are cut).  Japan is a little different, in that it has had substantially depressed defence budgets for a decade.  But in contrast to Europe and the USA, that is set to turn around this year.

However, in the event there was a war between Japan and China, there are a couple of important things to note.  Firstly, neither of these two nations has a substantial projected power capability.  That is, they are both quite effectively able to defend their own borders, but not to project power into the borders of other large nations (i.e. eachother).  So any suggestion that a war could be 'won' by either of these nations is inaccurate.  They could have an at sea skirmish, that would result in ship/aircraft/personel losses on both their parts.  But even here some in this thread have implied that Japan is at a disadvantage.  This is not the case.  Japan's navy is extremely modern, and capable of matching the Chinese Navy.  What it lacks in numbers it makes up in technological sophistication that China lacks.  Could this change in the future?  Yes.  But right now it is the recognised status quo.

So, what would happen if these two nations went to war and the USA got involved.  Firstly, the air/sea battle situation would change very quickly.  China's Navy and airforce would be decimated.  However even here there is a very real question as to whether anyone could actually 'win.'  The USA has easily the highest level of projectable power of any nation in history.  That said, China has developed extensive area and access denial networks, designed to make it extremely difficult to penetrate its air and sea space.  Even if the USA neutralised these networks (there are varying opinions as to whether they could), invading such a populated country just isnt feasible.  So, they would likely have some sort of stalemate, with an agreement developed that is favourable to the USA and Japan.

Note:  These scenarios are dependent on nuclear weapons not being used.  China has a stated no-first-use policy, dictating that they would never use nuclear weapons unless a foreign power used, or attempted to use, nuclear weapons against China.  The USA would not, of course, use nuclear weapons against China in the outlined scenario.  But I wouldn't be surprised if the above war was fought, to find that Japan decided it needed to develop its own nuclear weapons afterwards.

Neither side would risk the cost of full scale war for such little gain.

There is no chance of this becoming WWIII.

Serbs are very good people!? Dude! Try biggest a$$holes in the region, hated by every single country around it and for valid reasons might I add. I mean, if you don't care to read a history book, just judge by his absurd posts. No, they are not good people as a nation. Really, the world would be a much better place without the Serbs and Russians, instead of them joining forces and causing trouble to everyone around all the time. The Serbs are the lesser evil, but still are not good people.

Their women are hot, but that's nothing impressive over here, since all Slavic women are hot. Serbian are probably somewhere in the middle of the pack anyway to tell the truth.

And as for the islands - I think they should belong to Japan. They belonged to private Japanese people anyway, the Chinese had no control over them, and these guys deciced to sell them to the Japanese goverment - the Japanese claim seems more legit to me than the one of China. Plus I just hate the communists...

LOL, China and communists. This times are long over, the governing political party may call themself communist party, but the country is a capitalist country.

There's very easy way to know that this is ridiculous claim. Look at demographics chart and show me where these 60-70M are hiding, numbers are big enough to have an effect demographically.

I know, but still they stay by the most evil and destructive ideology ever created, even if just on paper. And they celebrate the world's biggest murderers. And I'm Polish, hence I'm allergic to the hammer and sickle, red colour or red stars :P

Not only on paper: The great leap forward was a big disaster and killed around 2 million people in China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

That was before China became a capitalist country. But that doesn't mean China today is a cosy, cuddly country. It has a dictatoric regime, without question. I only said it is a capitalist country, no longer a communist country.

Well, technically it is not different to what the Japanese do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine

Yes, I'm a german and aware of the problems Poland has with us and Russia. And I think it is rightfully so, both our countries committed war crimes to your country.