India and China should keep trundling along. (The economic battle will be among their states and provinces.) Tackling old inefficiencies, Japan has years of gains ahead, and stubborn South Korea will find a way to overcome each obstacle it puts in its own way.
It is no stretch now to say that the ferocious (but, sadly, wholly predictable) Chinese popular and official reaction is sending pangs of doubt and fear throughout Japan, from fields and factories in the provinces, to the central government offices in Kasumigaseki and the Prime Minister residence in Akasaka, Tokyo.