I don't buy it. The whole premise is confused. On the one hand, the author makes some well-founded points about Japan's demographic situation, which is indeed p

I don't buy it. The whole premise is confused. On the one hand, the author makes some well-founded points about Japan's demographic situation, which is indeed pretty dire if gross numbers of working-age citizens are what you're predicting. China is in a similar boat, it's true, with the one child policy. But Japan's downfall had little to do with demographics and a lot to do with an unsustainable bubble economy writ very large indeed. The problems with Japan are manyfold, you could write a very long essay just covering the major points, but basically boil down to cultural risk-averseness. There are not many entrepreneurs in Japan. The country needed to re-invent itself and failed. China could not be more different. Many, many Chinese are entrepreneurial, brash go-getters. Whereas Japan is all about social harmony and "wa" and not rocking the boat, Chinese are the most capitalist people imaginable and a brief visit to basically any Chinese city will convince you utterly of this fact. I don't think you can compare the two at all. It's true China has some systemic problems. If the banks' account sheets were audited properly I bet many of them are in the red, deeply. There is corruption and nepotism and all manner of petty inefficiencies imposed by officialdom. But the raw productivity cannot be denied. The author also assumes the instability of the Chinese government. He/she seems to take this as a matter of faith - I see no signs of instability. If the government can raise people from poverty into a decent middle class - and they are doing an outstanding job of this - then their position is assured. The rich do not revolt. I also have questions about the whole idea that more workers is what is needed to assure economic success. While it's true Japan's youth are dwindling in number, there is by no means a worker shortage in that country. If there was, wages would be high. They are not. There is plenty of youth unemployment. The growing automation of any number of industries may make all those idle youth obsolete. It may well turn out that in the future, less workers are needed, not more. And it's not as if America's teeming masses are particularly well-skilled. What will happen when a robot can flip the burgers? It's not too far off. I could go on and on but basically I think the article makes an awful lot of assumptions and comes off as wishful thinking. I am not about to bet against America, but I wouldn't exactly sell my shares in China just yet either. I doubt China will rocket up to dominate the world like the breathless predictions of "sinophiles" but I can't see too many alternate futures where they don't have the largest economy by 2050. It's pretty hard to beat a 400% larger population no matter how much "sokojikara" you have.