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China should learn from Japan's lost decade: former official

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By Tom Arnold

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Should lost decades & COUNTING since the 90s, Japan aint done yet, still in decline with no signs of a slow down sadly

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Japan, lecturing China. Is this a joke?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

China should learn from Japan's lost decade: former officialdom

Japan should learn it's mistake 's from it's own lost decade, more like.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Cute name, lost decade, since it started before my arrival over 25 years ago. That’s one looooong decade.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Ex_ResToday  12:01 pm JST

China should learn from Japan's lost decade: former officialdom

Japan should learn it's mistake 's from it's own lost decade, more like.

muri muri muri muri. They don’t earn. Japan goes by an agenda, not by what they did or should’ve learnt.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

This is what Japanese trade officials said to their Chinese counterparts years go too, and the latter was receptive to it. This former official might have been one of those who listened.

Also, China just needs to make sure they don't agree to anything like the Plaza Accord, which Japan unfortunately did.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Lost decade happened because of America making Japan sign the unfair treaty in order to curb Japan's economic rise. Having to depend on America military only made it worse for Japan when it comes to negotiating a fair deal instead of a win for America and a lost for Japan's economy and companies.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Lost decade happened because of America making Japan sign the unfair treaty in order to curb Japan's economic rise. Having to depend on America military only made it worse for Japan when it comes to negotiating a fair deal instead of a win for America and a lost for Japan's economy and companies.

What China can learn from Japan and the US is not to allow one sector to punch you in the gut and knock the economy out for years or decades. We have seen mini- bubbles in Beijing housing but the Chinese government has better control over real estate. It was not the unfair trade deals between the US and Japan that caused Japan’s slowdown but real estate, in 1989-1991 and 2006-2008, that can serve a lesson.

Japan was going to overtake the US as the number one economy of the world. I remember first hearing this on the radio humming to Nick Gilder’s hit Hot Child in the City that went to number one in the US and Canada. Honda CVCCs saved us a lot of gas and the Dalla Cowboys were it. Hated the Steelers.

By the time I’m singing to Addicted to Love, You Gave Love Bad Name, or R.O.C.K. in the USA, the Acura Legend or the Toyota Supra were selling well and the the Bears were doing the Super Bowl Shuffle. Japan was the betting favorite to own the 21st century.

America's century was said to be over and we were seeing the emergence of Japan as a major superpower. In Tokyo, people were waving Fukuzawa Yukichi bills at Taxi’s. How many nights were you out on weekdays?

In his book Trading Places, Prestowitz elaborated: "The power behind the Japanese juggernaut is much greater than most Americans suspect, and the juggernaut cannot stop of its own volition, for Japan has created a kind of automatic wealth machine, perhaps the first since King Midas." I always liked gold. Golden week 2019.

It was common to read that sooner or later, Americans must come to grips with the fact that Japan had become the leading industrial nation in the world. The Japanese have the longest lifespan. They have the highest employment, the highest literacy, the smallest gap between rich and poor. Their manufactured goods have the highest quality. They have the best food. The fact is that a country the size of Montana, with half of our population, will soon have an economy equal to that of the US. Remember the Time magazine covers about Japan?

These predictions weren't just wrong. They were the sheer opposite of what happened. Japan's stock market and real estate market collapsed in the 1990s. Its economy has been in an unmitigated slump ever since, spending the better part of two and a half decades fighting deflation and is now one of the most indebted industrialized nation in the world.

The country's debt to GDP ratio is enormous close to 250% and the banks offer ultra low and negative interest rates. Try and get a mortgage loan with that kind of debt to income ratio. But this is the government and it can give itself a raise or raises.

The government pumps more funds into the economy, borrowing from domestic retirement savings, desperately trying to refloat its economy. Japan is buying time to recover. It may not work. It hasn’t no matter how much JT posters Abe this or Aso that. It’s not working.

What can China learn from Japan? Don’t make the same mistake the US made in its last recession and what Japan did back in the day when we had to listen to cheesy songs like Say you Say Me that is: overleveraging inflated real estate to the point of undermining the economics of the country.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Lost decade happened because of America making Japan sign the unfair treaty in order to curb Japan's economic rise. Having to depend on America military only made it worse for Japan when it comes to negotiating a fair deal instead of a win for America and a lost for Japan's economy and companies.

Of course, it's never Japans fault, is it!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I don't see the particular similarity between Japan and China.

For one thing, creative destruction is ongoing in China unlike Japan's lost decades.

Creative destruction means the old industries die out and to be replaced by new ones. This is made possible by China's "Fire and Hire at will" employment system, unlike Japan's "Life-time" employment system.

So there are Chinese companies going out of business, but many more Unicorn companies to replace them and grow Chinese economy.

It is of no accident that China has more Unicorn companies than the Silicon Valley now.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Japan, lecturing China. Is this a joke?"

No! Not at all.

Especially when China is being "lectured" by no other than former central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, a proper Yamato Japanese.

He even bears the typical Japanese name Xiaochuan!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

China need not worry too much. Its main banks are owned by the govt, and the financial sector is tightly controlled by the state. My advice to the authorities is to continue cracking down on shadow banking.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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