Obviously overblown BS. Just like Japan in the 90s. Fearmongering sells.
I don't think Japan was overblown or fearmongering. Japan's growth in the late 80s was explosive and wasn't starting too far back from the US like China. If they'd kept pace in early 90s, they probably would have surpassed the US. Even if the Lost Decade had not happened or been delayed several years, would the implications have really been that serious for US? There's probably a difference when your main economic competition isn't an adversary. Either way, the US economy was due for the Dot-Com Boom in the late 90s.
I don't really know much about the intricacies of the Chinese economy, but even now, China's GDP is at 60% of US GDP. In 1995, the Japan's GDP managed to hit about 70% of US GDP. Looking as far back as 1970, that was the closest any other country has been to the US. Prior to Japan becoming the world's second largest economy (surpassing the Soviet Union in 1977-78), no country was even at half of US GDP.
Except that it's virtually impossible for any country to "keep pace" at that level unless they want to keep the printing presses running 24/7.
At a basic level, there are three ways a country can increase its total output (i.e. its GDP):
1. Population growth (leading to more people producing things)
2. Substituting work for leisure (people producing more because they work more)
3. Productivity growth (people producing more without working more)
Japan can't do the first one because its population was stagnating for years and is now starting to decline outright.
It has been doing the second one with ferocious intensity for decades and that was a big contributor to their phenomenal growth in the '80s. When more of your people are getting old and no longer working, the people who are still of working age have to work more in order to make up for that. Hence, the archetypal overworked salaryman and the glorification of employees passed out at their desks from working all night.
Productivity growth has been slowing in the US since the 1970s (there was a small bump in the '90s related to the advent of personal computing in offices). I'd imagine the story has been similar in Japan.
