Yeah, but whose to say that the prevalence of those fears didn't have a hand in making them a non-issue?
What else but a fear of war motivates us to avoid it? Would China have instituted its one-child policy without a fear of population explosion, a policy which arguably is one of the most important factors in its rapid rise (as compared to India, for instance)? Perhaps the seeming inevitability of Japan's dominance made them complacent while simultaneously stripping American's of theirs?
>which arguably is one of the most important factors in its rapid rise
There is debate over the actual effectiveness of the policy. The really optimistic numbers seem to come straight fromt the Chinese government, and there are a lot of people who disagree with them.
Additionally they are going to have a huge demographic problem as the one child generation ages. I was just reading an economist article that said estimates are that over 1/3 of Shanghai will be over 60 by 2020, and by 2050 the median age in China will be 49.
Now the only thing they need is to institute western-like welfare state system where people have very low private savings rate and rely almost completely on pay-as-you-go defined benefits global pension funds - and they'd be left very surprised and wondering what hit them so hard when everything was going so good just so short time ago.
What else but a fear of war motivates us to avoid it? Would China have instituted its one-child policy without a fear of population explosion, a policy which arguably is one of the most important factors in its rapid rise (as compared to India, for instance)? Perhaps the seeming inevitability of Japan's dominance made them complacent while simultaneously stripping American's of theirs?