The below test exercises the clause in JLS 18.5.2 stating that, where unchecked conversion was necessary for the arguments, the return type of the invocation must be erased.

    <T> T m(Class<T> arg1, Class<T> arg2) { return null; }

    void test(Class c1, Class<Class<String>> c2) throws Exception {
        m(c1, c2).newInstance(); // expected: error; actual: ok
        m(c1, c2).newInstance().length(); // expected: error; actual: error
    }

The erasure of the return type, T, is Object. However, javac seems to be producing raw Class instead. It appears that javac is inferring T=Class<String>, performing substitution on the return type, and *then* erasing to raw Class. This is inconsistent with the spec, going back to JLS 3 (15.12.2.6), which makes clear that substitution of inference results only occurs in the case in which unchecked conversion was not necessary.