Hopefully they'll get to alternative tech such as DAGs like the block lattice of Nano or Tangle of Iota.
Nano in particular could use a fiat ramp as the first and only crypto to be instant and feeless. Nano could be the one that takes cryptos mainstream - which is Coinbase's mission statement as well
the scale at China can do things is different from japanese as a function of its population. 10% of japanese population investing abroad in an under connected world in the 80s is vastly different to 10% of Chinese buying up real estate in an connected world with access to lots of resources and information Japanese in the 80s simply didn't have.
Chinese also immigrate into other countries in vastly higher numbers than Japanese.
The japan, china comparison is close to false equivalence
There hasn't been much of discussion or writing about the extinction of cultures, syncretism, open border civs at the hands of Islam.
Greek / Roman / Indian influence in Eurasia to Indonesia is probably another tragedy that the world forgot.
Only pockets like Bali remain from that era now.