Well, I can't comment on the macro economics, but on the small business side, I can say that China will do much better than Japan. The Japanese are deadly afraid of commitment and responsibility for some reason (the culture, likely), which is not the case with the Chinese, who can bootstrap like crazy and are less afraid of taking risks - although the latter might be because they have nothing to lose. Plus, China's got 10x the population...
The Japanese are afraid of responsibility since what century exactly? I've never heard of that. I've only heard the opposite in fact: that being responsible is among the most important cultural things to the Japanese. You see it in the history of how they view employment between employers and workers for example. A general sense of making things right.
I think you'd be very hard pressed to find a people more responsible than the Japanese.
Probably has something to do with their high national debt. Many people seem to believe that high national debt reflects a population that chooses government subsidies over employment. You see that with Greece and Spain a lot.
Huh? Japan's employment rate remains extraordinarily high (3.6% unemployment, after ~20 years of recession!), and Japan's government debt is almost entirely to Japanese investors.
Could you base your arguments with some facts? I work in international company and don't find Chinese in the top risk taking colleagues (Americans win big in this area). That's equally anecdotal like in your case but since it is different experience it would be interesting to hear where you experience comes from.
