They should be. The Japanese are perfectionists and believe in high quality. The Chinese, not so much. If given a chance, the Japanese can build high quality military hardware that can destroy anything the Chinese throw at them. Chinese may have some smart people, but the Japanese are smarter and better at building high quality machines.
Taiwan used to be a Japanese territory for half a century until they lost it at the end of WWII. During that time, they greatly improved quality of life for the Taiwanese, bringing them from third-world conditions into 20th-century living. When the Chinese took over Taiwan after WWII, the infrastructure was not maintained under Chinese rule and Taiwanese missed having the Japanese in charge. Even to this day, Taiwan is the most pro-Japanese nation in Asia. The Chinese know the Japanese are a force to contend with.
They would have to turn their whole culture around first.
And is the technological gap really that great, considering that China has ten times the population, an army ten times as big and more martial spirit than modern Japan?
Quantity has a quality all its own.
If there is one thing China has is quantity.
A lot of quantity that is going to grow even larger.