Since Japan’s emergence as an economic juggernaut in the 1970s, experts have predicted the arrival of an “Asian century.” We should get ready, they say, for a tectonic shift in global power as U.S. influence declines, Europe’s discontents mount, and the countries of the Indo-Pacific come to dominate world politics, economics and security. Images of Asia’s rising power and prestige have embedded themselves in our imaginations, from the purchase of Rockefeller Center by Japanese investors in the late 1980s to the grand spectacle of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Today, with more than half the world’s population living in the region, Asia looms ever larger.

But this impressive ascent has not reconfigured world affairs, and it is unlikely to. The more important Asia has become on the global stage, the more glaring have its flaws become. The region is deeply fractured, threatened by economic stagnation, political upheaval and flashpoints that could trigger new wars. And in our more integrated global society, its troubles could quickly become everyone else’s. Much of the world’s attention in the coming decades will be devoted not just to accommodating Asia’s growing power but to managing and mitigating its many serious problems.

The bad news is likely to arrive in five discrete but interrelated varieties. The first major problem is the end of Asia’s economic miracle and the failure of its economies to reform. From Japan to India, Asian countries are struggling to maintain growth, balance their economies and fight slowdowns. The worries they face include uneven development, asset bubbles, labor woes and state control of markets.

Perhaps the greatest risk is the dramatically slowing Chinese economy. When trading opened on the Shanghai Composite Index on June 12, 2015, its value had skyrocketed more than 100% since the summer of 2014. Then the bubble popped. Fueled by fears of a slowing economy, a weakening currency and an unsustainable debt bomb of some $30 trillion, China’s markets went into free fall.

In just weeks, the world began asking whether China’s glory days were over. Since then, the evidence has only accumulated that China has entered a prolonged economic slowdown, marked by a stampede of capital out of the country, totaling $725 billion last year, according to the Institute of International Finance. China’s leaders will have to craft meaningful reforms to maintain even moderate growth in the years ahead.