Chinese cultural soft power (mostly just crappy HK action films - nothing like the Japanese gaming/anime/electronics industry) is inferior to that of Mexico or even Greece, the only real soft power China has is economic. Let's not be unrealistically overconfident here, that's the mistake Japan made during the war.
As for military power, almost any military action Japan can be remotely hypothesised to fight in the near future will be taking place at sea.
