The problem here is China has seriously miscalculated and focused too heavily on exports. The rest of the world doesn't want more Chinese exports than they did in 2007. Export lead growth only gets you so far.
Japan [with a population of ~128 million] could run its economy into exports and scale to catching up with the West in that manner because of the smaller population.
China's exports have stopped growing and that is a very, very serious problem with debt fueled growth focused on exports. They'll have to print money [to bring export growth back and avoid a private debt bubble bursting] which is why everyone is betting against their currency. Or they'll go into a recession and they'll need to print money.
Japan [with a population of ~128 million] could run its economy into exports and scale to catching up with the West in that manner because of the smaller population.
China simply can't do that with 1 billion people.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/12/china-exports-imports-continu...
China's exports have stopped growing and that is a very, very serious problem with debt fueled growth focused on exports. They'll have to print money [to bring export growth back and avoid a private debt bubble bursting] which is why everyone is betting against their currency. Or they'll go into a recession and they'll need to print money.