Is Vietnam going to pay for that or are you asking Japan to give you those for free?
Agreed. But the gap is closing fast. Take a look at the state of the Chinese military even 15 years ago. People were talking about any attempts to reclaim Taiwan as the "million man swim" and the Chinese military was "the world's largest military museum." China was definitely the upstart.The Chinese navy was far behind Japan in numbers and capability and far behind India as well back then.
And take a look at the Chinese military now. People speak as if Japan has been the underdog but it has actually been China who was the underdog. Years of rightwing Japanese governments eager to whitewash history has given considerable impetus to China's military expansion, culminating in the launch of 3 warships (a total of 32,000 tons) in a single day by a single shipyard a few days ago. And the J-20 entering LRIP likely within two years.
Japan is definitely #2 but the spot is theirs to lose with China closing the gap fast in both numbers and technology. (Same with Russia). After all, to paraphrase James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid."