Bill, I am not saying a recession is looming but what goes up is bound to go down one day.

The Japanese economy experienced a slump in economic growth after 1993 because the old traditional Japanese corporate way of business could not cope with the ever global economy.
Japan only recovered in 2003 after committing to massive reforms which mostly was adopted from the US. Ironically most of the reforms which was applied were the ones which the US developed in the early 1990's.

China on the other side has never ever experienced a recession which is linked to the global market. As in the Asian economic crisis of 1998, China was still closed.
Their lack of experience in dealing with bubble bursts and with the level of Govt ownership, corruption and the gap in society, with increasing inflation things do not look good.

But at least China is guaranteed economic growth until around 2011. Due to the Olympics and also the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.