From USA TODAY:
…Last year, China became the world’s second-largest economy — behind the United States — overtaking Japan, which had held that ranking since 1968. China’s rising influence can be seen not just in the goods for sale in Tokyo, but across Japanese society: Chinese investors here are snapping up real estate and setting up homes and businesses. Its foreign-exchange students are flocking to Japanese universities. Chinese tourists also are arriving in greater numbers, boosting Japan’s sagging economy with their spending.
The China-fication of pockets of this proud and nationalistic society is as much a tale of Japan’s decades-long stagnation as it is of China’s rise. This shift in power brings economic, social and cultural implications for Asia, the USA and the rest of the world.
For one, China’s rapid rise means “the Japanese can’t take it for granted that they’ll remain dominant in any field, including technology,” says Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The same holds true for other nations, such as the USA, Prasad adds…
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