I see this reasoning a lot and it feels like an artifact of cold-war MAD thinking. The scenario in which I feel nukes are likely from China is the one from fallout where on the losing end of a global war, the last remnants of the CCP launch an attack as a last ditch effort, I think it is unlikely an nation state (excepting Israel) would use strategic nuclear weapons except as a last ditch resort. Tactically maybe, but not strategically, because everyone wants something, the reasoning in the Cold war was "there are only two powers so you must make sure you are as big and scary as the other guy so they don't try anything". In contrast China seems to simply want to become a world superpower and rule the world not destroy it, in the coldwar we had two diametrically oppossed ideologies competing in a battle for survival that both insisted the other could not be allowed to exist. Now things are very different.
That's the thing is that China doesn't want to rule over a wasteland. If another war goes hot it will take a long time before it goes strategically nuclear because everyone knows that once that genies out of the bottle it allows your enemies to retaliate in kind. Even Putin who most people think is insane, and completely unhinged hasn't even used nuclear weapons despite suffering significant losses, being at a technological disadvantage and giving up ground every day. He might use them tactically but unless he's hiding in a bunker in Moscow as the Ukrainian armed forces are bearing down on him I think he is unlikely to decide to drop the nukes on Kyiv.
So now our military and intelligence apparatuses are to paraphrase an old quote "perfectly prepared to fight the last war", without taking into account the multi-polar nature of the world.
Japan was trying to wipe China off the map 80 years ago. China is upset still.