Viet, I have to disagree with you here.
Japan does take China seriously. They have a much larger defense budget and are modernizing a very large military. Because of that and their claims on the South China Sea, Taiwan, and the Senkaku islands, Japan has to China seriously. What that means though is that Japan is getting serious. If China was not worth getting serious about, then Japan wouldn't have shifted its defense policy. One critical pillar of the shift was the passing of "collective self-defense" and the development of defense relations with countries such as Vietnam.
But taking China seriously does not mean that Japan lacks the ability to overcome the challenge. Rather, a Japan that takes China seriously will be a more powerful defense partner. Of course I recognize the want (for lack of a better word) to out talk some of these brain dead posters here. There are two winning points in a given argument. One is winning by proving superior morality. The other is proving superior might so even if the opponent is morally correct, it doesn't matter when presenting a view of "might makes right". When it comes to the argument of "might makes right" and only making the argument for the sake of winning a contest in the eyes of others to prove to be stronger rather then having a discussion to discover who is stronger regardless of the interest of the parties, then the actual strength in reality does not matter. So that's what these blockhead posters are doing. Of course your free to keep pressing against their blockheaded posts. But just stating that point because saying Japan doesn't take China seriously I think just serves to compete in this display of toughness competition.
I would also add that sometimes the general superior effectiveness of the Imperial Japanese Army over the combination of Chinese Nationalists and Communists forces still overlooks some errors in combat effectiveness, partly due to over-confidence. The over confidence came because of a combination of desire to push on and successes. Initially the fight in 1937 Shanghai was tougher than expected but upon Chinese retreat, the Japanese were quite successful in advancing and the fall on Nanking came as a major military victory. But later, even though the Imperial Japanese Army was able to make more advances, they were not able to achieve the objective of knocking out the Nationalists Chinese at Wuhan. Chinese side took greater losses and lost the city, but the Japan side still had major losses and could no longer push. It was also at this point that the Imperial Japanese Army started to use chemical weapons, likely in an effort to break the morality of the Nationalists Chinese forces to the point in which a cease fire or truce could become desirable for the Chinese. Well they didn't give up although the Naitonalist Chinese did have a very difficult time in keeping up moral and recruiting new soldiers. From the Japanese perspective, I think there could be mistakes identified in several of the battles between the fall of Nanking and the capture of Wuhan. But with that said, the Japanese were still able to maintain general control of the areas they held. One thing that help them maintain the control comes up to your other statement about rape. In the fall of Nanking in late 1937 and early 1938, cases of rape were very likely. As well as looting. This did not help with keeping control. So the Japanese forces applied stern rules to not rape and to not loot again. I can't comment how often that rule may have been broken afterwards. After all, any army made of young males in a foreign country is going to get testy with the hormones, regardless of nation they a representing. But in the general sense, the rape was identified as not constructive to Japanese efforts and so had to be prevented from happening again. With the establishment of Chinese government operated by leaders like Wang Jingwei, its probably likely that the Imperial Japanese Army, more or less, obeyed such rules to not loot and rape the Chinese under occupation again. Therefore I think it would not be honorable for the Japanese to say that they were able to rape. So that is why I disagree on your second sentence.
