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It is in practical terms.

There are too many people on earth right now, it is unsustainable and growing. However in Japan if they have a lot of older people and nobody to do the actual work society needs (e.g. food, utilities, transport, etc) and or to take care of those older people, then you'll run into a problem.

The problem for Japan isn't a decline, it is too fast of a decline. If the decline happened much slower it might be a non-problem.

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If Japan accumulated a sovereign wealth fund during the "boom" times, they could draw upon this fund during the absence of exports due to aging workers. The problem is in the current pay-as-you-go social security system.

Japan's labour force is proportionally higher than at least that of the UK and USA, their debt crisis is much more pressing than any labour issues right now.

Yes. A debt crisis that the US is walking into almost exactly alike, but a decade behind. And nobody cares.

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