I belong to that wishy-washy school that sees more, but also more complicated, engagement with China ahead. I won't bore you with my own cherry-picked laundry list of the reasons why. Instead, I'll comment on two points in Paul Midford's post.

"The only thing that could really alter this picture is if nuclear weapons themselves become obsolete. There are some reasons for concern, especially as the US has been developing large precision guided munitions that can be potentially as effective as nuclear weapons in attacking another side's missile silos or decapitating its leadership. In other words, one side could attempt a first strike using conventional warheads."

China is now building a fleet of submarines equipped with ballistic missiles. I'm not aware what the situation is with their land-based missiles, but I assume that at least some of them are mounted on mobile units and shuffled around the country, much the way even North Korea does with its smaller ballistic missiles. As for decapitating China's leadership, military and/or civilian, I suspect that a country that once deliberately decentralized its industrial capacity precisely to enhance resilience against hostilities has made sure that its military chain of command will survive a bunker buster attack on Zhongnanhai.

"China's defense spending is not what you would expect of nationalistically driven expansionist power."

Indeed no, according to the SIPRI factsheet 2010 (http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/factshee
t2010). However, the transparency issue aside, the factsheet says that it has almost tripled in just nine years and is already twice Japan's-which will grow little if any in the foreseeable future. If U.S.
defense spending likewise fails to rise-right now, the U.S. is bracing itself for a multiyear defense (among other things) spending cut-and China's continues rising like it did from 2001-2010, the two annual figures will be roughly equal in another fifteen years or so. What will China's regional status and global reach look like at that point? I don't think that China is a "nationalistically driven expansionist power" either, but I do think that China is an expanding power with nationalistic constituencies, including a large military that cannot be seeing any value in downplaying its own external threats. (There's a politically incorrect analogy involving airplane seats lurking
here.) At the same time, even Japanese convenience and fast-food chains are investing heavily in the Chinese market..Stop me before I inflict my laundry sheet on you all!