Because, depending on the circumstances, it could be strategically advantageous to do so.
China has a huge stockpile of first-strike (conventional) weapons, more than Japan and South Korea combined. There's no reason for either to attack first and not only face the Chinese response but also lose the moral high ground.
Can you safely say no Chinese government in the future would decide a first strike would help it win a conflict? Do you even know who's going to succeed Xi or the rest of the Standing Committee? Xi isn't going to live forever.
Japan getting involved in a Taiwan war is not necessarily an attack on China. Japan's involvement could fall within a huge range, and none of them would be likely to involve a first strike on China.
If China wanted to wait until the US and other countries like Japan had formally announced a military intervention before firing a single missile, fair enough. But that would give up an advantage that a first strike has, and potentially pass the initiative to the US/Coalition. It's very possible, I would say more likely than not, that China would assume an outside intervention would happen and make attacks on Okinawa, Guam and elsewhere first. An attack on Okinawa would be an attack on Japan.
That's a strawman from you. I never said it would. I said that it would be extreme to use WMD against non-nuclear nations. Nuclear weapons are to deter nuclear conflict, not win conventional wars.
Is this where we play the make-believe game that China occupying islands/atols and building military bases with missile batteries, after Xi said he would not militarise the SCS, is not aggressive?
If we're talking about the future, I imagine control shipping in/around South East Asia would be one. Again, hypothetical scenario. A future Chinese government may take action it argues is necessary or reasonable but other countries see as aggressive.
You mean respect the rights of a sovereign nation to develop military technology China already has?
It would depend why they left. If they were no longer welcome then quite obviously the countries that just asked them to leave would have no reason to change their policy on nuclear weapons.
Then again if the US unilaterally pulled out even when South Korea and Japan wanted it to stay, the reaction would be quite different.
I see. Is another part of the make-believe game where I have to pretend that RCEP isn't a free trade agreement? Or where I forget that South Korea and China have applied to join CPTPP, of which Japan is a member but the US isn't?
Again, that's another strawman from you. I never mentioned domination. Rather it was you that implied China might use nuclear weapons despite the fact neither South Korea nor Japan have them currently.
