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One possible negative consequence of the Iran war that I haven't seen talked about much is that it might encourage both the American establishment and the American public to think too lightly of war with China. More the latter than the former, really - I am sure that the former at least understand the danger of nuclear war and have no interest in getting personally hit by nuclear weapons. But even they might become a bit too reckless as a result of these easy military victories. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the public has very little understanding of military affairs and probably don't really understand the difference in power between China and every other US rival. The way I would put it, the Iran war is like an NBA team playing a college team, maybe even a high school team. Yes, Iran is keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed and are pulling off the occasional successful strike against Israel and the Gulf countries. But that is happening because they are lucky in terms of geography to be sitting next to one of the world's most economically important waterways and are also right next to the Gulf countries. In terms of pure military-on-military action, the US military is dominating while suffering barely a scratch.
War against China would be like an NBA team playing another NBA team, maybe a weaker NBA team but an NBA team nonetheless. There is a danger of insufficient caution causing a series of minor escalations to blossom into full-scale war against China.
The Persian war, our battle of Carrhae, is giving China pause about its Taiwan invasion plans if it has any brains. If Iran can close the straight of Hormuz then Japan can close the south China sea.
No, not really. Does Japan have a network of defensive and offensive emplacements that had been put in place over decades? Do they have a massive indigenous drone program that does not rely on foreign imports? As a society, are they tightly integrated into the global economy (and hence dependent upon foreign imports) or are they mostly self sufficient? Is their primary foe on the other side of the world with an anemic manufacturing base, or is it directly adjacent to them and with a huge domestic manufacturing base? In another world, Japan could close the south China sea without any problems - but not in this one.
Japan could probably mine the SCS pretty easily with their fleet of submarines, which might close it to international traffic based on the risk profiles we've seen.
They have a pretty large submarine fleet incidentally, nearly as many AIP submarines as China does, and a competitive production rate.
This does nothing to change their position - Japan is far more dependent upon sea-based imports than China, and any kind of escalation will result in them hurting themselves far more than they hurt China. If China was somehow completely cut off from the sea, they'd still have access to extensive land-based trade networks, including Russian fossil fuel supplies. If Japan is cut off from sea-based trade, which China would be able to do far more easily, they have no other options.
Yes, it's absolutely true that Japan versus China wouldn't be much of a contest.
But note that part of the Chinese situation is that they are locked "behind the first island chain" which creates chokepoints. Japan doesn't have the same weakness because their back is to the Pacific.
Is Japan actually capable of preventing China from interdicting traffic to their rear as well? I don't think JP air defence is good enough to prevent China from making the rear approach a logistical impossibility too, even if you ignore their navy.
How would China interdict traffic to their rear?
There are a few ways. Here's how I see it:
Ballistic missiles. Japan has a limited number of ASBMs and would need to guide them via satellite, unless they pushed back Japan's air defense coverage quite a ways and got radar aircraft operating over, say, the sea of Japan. Even then I am not sure if radar would be able to reliably ID ships versus, let's say, very large radar reflectors towed by small boats (not something you want to launch missiles at). Imaging satellites and SAR satellites are nice for this, as long as it doesn't rain or nobody lasers them/jams them to blind them or shoots them down (Japan has SM-3s). So basically, China using its limited stockpile of ballistic missiles on transiting cargo vessels would be possible but annoying, and Japan has hard-kill (Standards, to shoot down the missiles and/or targeting satellites) and plausibly soft-kill (radar jammers and decoys, lasers, cyber, etc.) to interfere with the kill chain. China would also plausibly run out of missiles before Japan ran out of ships.
Submarines. Chinese submarines would need to either take a long detour or pass through the (Japanese-controlled) island chain to break out into the ocean and intercept convoys. And Chinese submarines aren't supposed to be the quietest – I would still assume they are pretty troublesome, though. One issue with submarines, generally, though is that they are louder when they are faster. So lurking in chokepoints is ideal. But it's hard to lurk in chokepoints right next to enemy territory. Japan can rigorously patrol an area around their ports, and Japan has a lot of ports and Chinese submarines would not necessarily know which ones were slated to receive cargo. I think submarines could be effective once they got on station, but it's not risk-free.
(This is why it's very annoying to be e.g. China fighting a joint coalition of the US, Australia, Japan etc. – if the US decides to blockade Malacca, you've got to sail out there and fight them. Whereas if you want to blockade Japan or Taiwan, you've also got to sail out there and fight them.)
Surface ships/carrier aircraft. This has the same problem as the submarines except for instead of being sneaky and underwater you are not so sneaky and very much above the water. It would be nice if China could get a carrier battle group out in the Pacific to interdict trade (setting aside the diplomatic implications of course) but again you're either detouring around Taiwan or you are forcing your way through the island chain in the face of Japanese shore batteries, airstrikes, submarines etc. You would be wary of doing this for the same reason that the US is wary of parking a carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf right now. And this is all really annoying because, again, any path you take to get out into the Japanese rear with a carrier battle group passes under the nose of Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, etc. not to mention US spy satellites. In a world of perfect spheres where it's just Japan versus China this might not matter but in the real world with information-sharing (and Twitter posting) this might mean Japan screws up your entire day with a submarine. And even if they don't then you might still need to defeat their (large) navy, possibly supported by shore-based aviation, in a surface battle.
Airstrikes from shore. If this is Perfect Sphere World, the North Koreans and Russians aren't helping you out, which means their airspace is closed to you (this might also prevent you from using your SRBM arsenal against Japan without coming off as very rude as well, incidentally), so instead of fighting over the Sea of Japan you're basically flying out from Shanghai or Qingdao to try to interdict shipping in Tokyo or Sendai.
You will have trouble doing this with bombs from tactical aircraft. The J-16 is a big bird, the J-20, too, but Tokyo - Shanghai is about a 1000 miles and that's if you fly right over Japan and its associated air defenses. The J-16 probably has a combat radius of, like, 600nm miles (it will depend a bit on payload; anti-ship missiles are pretty heavy) - although in theory you could refuel it. Google suggests the J-20 has somewhere in the ballpark of twice that, so you might could fly a J-20 around and bomb ships in Tokyo harbor without flying right over the entirety of Japan, but you're still going to be right on top of Japanese air defenses and fighter/interceptors, who will be operating well within their operational range (whereas you will not be). That matters a lot since your aircraft will have much less time for combat engagements and will be putting in a lot more hours to fly fewer sorties, whereas the JASDF will be able to put up more, shorter sorties – in effect they will be fighting more efficiently. You asked about their air defense – they have more than 300 fighter aircraft (and two aircraft carriers) plus ground-based defenses and their own navy, which as we said might be running convoy duty. So actually carrying out attacks will not be trivial.
You also have your strategic bomber force. You can send bomber raids, escorting them with the J-20s and J-16s, and try to intercept the cargo convoys with antiship missiles – again, though, you have to find them, and that means either turning on the old radar (which can tell everyone that you are there and invite them to shoot you in the face) or find them with EO/IR sensors (which is fine but probably also means you're running the gauntlet of getting spotted by their EO/IR sensors). This is another pretty decent way of overcoming defended convoys as long as you're comfortable with the risk of operating under the threat of Japanese fighter coverage.
I think in Sphere World the Chinese can probably win this. Of course in Sphere World China could probably just nuke Japan, but setting that aside, we're just going to try to destroy as many Japanese fighters on the ground with ballistic missiles as we can and then throw every airplane we have into SEAD/DEAD/CAP until we grind them down and then we are going to do bomber raids out in the Pacific against their fleets until they are sunk and then we will just bomb every ship approaching Japan unopposed. We can combine this with amphibious attacks on the island chain and then, once we've punched a hole in that, send our CBG into the Pacific and screen for their submarines with a dozen frigates. A few ships might get through this but it would probably succeed in shutting down the bulk of trade in a relatively short time.
Now, if this plan seems familiar, it's because it would be similar to the US air campaign against Iran (complete with possibly invading islands and such), except that the US air force is better and larger than that of the Chinese, and the Japanese air force and air defenses navy are better and newer and more numerous than those of the Iranians. In non-sphere world, even if the US was for some reason not going to defend Japan, if China was trying to do it without facing unacceptably high losses you can see how they might actually choke on it. If The Big One happens I think China is going to be extremely busy with the naval target set and might not bother to launch a dedicated anti-shipping campaign (although the mere threat of one might be effective enough in many cases).
But possibly I am missing some obvious options here.
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