Linus comments

Take a trip to SE Asia and witness all the big name Japanese companies are now.

I don't even see them these days much in SEA. Korean, Chinese, American names are all over the place.

@Samit Basu

Mercedes is the second best selling auto brand in Korea after Hyundai-Kia, BMW is 3rd. Average Koreans can afford Genesis, Mercedes, BMW, and Tesla while average Japanese can only afford Kei cars.

Not just in SK, Japanese executives from Sumitomo, Mizuho, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, other national flagship companies of Japan in Vietnam are even stunned at the number of luxury cars in the streets of Vietnam. They are stunned that rural areas in Vietnam have more of them than in urban areas. In Vietnam, Vietnamese elites always party hard with Koreans, Chinese, Westerners but they rarely see any Japanese in these fancy parties at nightclubs to lavish ballrooms. Many Vietnamese workers also comment that Japanese executives in Vietnam are stingy with money because Japanese executives apparently don't have much.

I don't even have space to talk about Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore. Japanese invisibility in ASEAN is even worse since Japanese executives are too embarrassed of admitting that those "inferior Asians" getting richer than them.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/12/japan-pays-a-high-price-as-it-goes-down-market/

Jake Adelstein recently wrote an article about this, and even Thailand now has higher prices and competitive standards of living than Japan. He basically cited the sources from various Japanese economists on the matter, not his own words.

Japanese competent workers are already seeking jobs in China, and those people are hailed from big companies of Japan!!!

@Udondashi

The "Free trade" agreements such as TPP, RCEP, FTA, EPA has been eating away Japan's economy for over 30 years... this is pure poison for Japan's economy.

These agreements are what empower Japanese rivals against Japan. China and Vietnam are the greatest recipients of these agreements as they can manipulate their own currencies without any consequence. Japan was screwed because of not only the Plaza Accord but also stupid bureaucrats in the Bank of Japan who brought into Reaganomics. The BoJ officials, who were controlled by American financiers from the start, experimented on the concept of monetary easing and skyrocketing FIRE (Finance, Real Estate, Insurance) growth from the 1980s to the 1990s. You all know the story of how it ended up but the BoJ blamed their incompetence on the MITI and MoF, two powerful ministries that were controlled by secret members of the Japan Socialist Party or socialist sympathizers.

Japan permanently destroyed its own economy by creating an experimental economic bubble to oust the shadow socialists and communists within Japan. The last effective, competent leader of Japan was a socialist named Tomiichi Murayama.

Japan struggles to regain control over its economy and currency from the FED and US military-intelligence complex. That's why it now joins almost every FTA on the planet but it will likely harm Japan in the long term. Japan's permanent destruction in its ability to control its own financial systems, due to 1980s bubbles, will allow little insurance against fierce competitors from China, Vietnam, India, and ASEAN nations.

@gokai_wo_maneku

I'm not pessimistic about Japan' economy. There are still many areas in technology where Japan is still way ahead of anyone, especially knowledge and capital intensive technologies that can only be made by Japan.

You mean the American free gifts to Japan that Japanese scientists continue developing after everyone is moving to a new thing. Like hydrogen fuels or even flip phones?

Japan always relies on foreigners to bring new things to them, not they find something new by themselves (this rarely happens). Even Japanese advances in semiconductors in the 20th century were already discovered and practiced by Western scientists and Soviet scientists. Japan was good in that century because they knew how to effectively mass produce Western technological advances. This is something that China is going way ahead of Japan since China discovers their own things not to rely on the West.

@kurisupisu

An entrenched bureaucracy which controls by stealth and an education system which molds kids to conform for repetition of tasks in industrial environments which have disappeared.

Forgot to mention all the J companies that have jumped ship to 3rd world countries for cheap labor.

Adding wounds to the fact, Japanese workers are now becoming the so-called "Third world" workers themselves in those "Third World" nations. Smarter Japanese people flee to the West for better salary jobs than in Japan, like Kei Komuro and Princess Mako.

If all Japanese kids can learn multiple languages and travel around the world, like Chinese and Vietnamese kids who have more international students in the West than Japan, then Japan will be an empty workplace. Almost everyone from Japan never goes back to their country once any of them has settled in the West. Japanese bureaucrats are still living in their feudal fantasies, and they need filthy peasants to feed their egos. However, that reality will rapidly shatter in the coming years as Chinese, Vietnamese, Southeast Asian immigrants gain in dominant number and economic power within Japan. These feudal lords will realize that they can't bully foreign immigrants anymore.

@Cricky

I’m sure the next release of government GDP figures will be tweaked to put a stop to this nonsense of loosing place in the viewed natural order.

They will probably fake all of the GDP data to make Japan look great as an OECD member and a G7 member. In truth, Japan gradually holds no power and economic strength as a member of any of these prestigious organizations.

@Septim Dynasty

Not surprised, Japan will definitely lose to India within 2-3 years, while Japan will possibly lose to many ASEAN countries within this decade.

I would comment that Japan has already lost to India in many fields from space technologies to defense technologies. The economy of India is possibly larger than Japan as we speak since India has never truly released its own full potential yet. Big ASEAN nations (Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines) are going to surpass Japan much faster if the Taiwan straight conflict is going to happen within a few months or 2-3 years.

Japan's LDP will drag Japan into its own self-destructive war against China. Of course, China will destroy Japan's economy for good. Just look at Ukraine, it was once an industrial power that competed against Germany. Now, its economic position lost so badly because Ukrainian leaders are deeply entrenched into American false promises, just like the LDP elites today.

Not too optimistic about a Suga premiership then, Xeno?

Kono is much better but it is unfortunate that he isn't likely to win.

Cheap labor.

Reliable, cheap labor.

There are Chinese but their government is untrusted. There are Korean but J-govt does not like them either.

Taiwan is loyal but its population is diminishing. A lot of Taiwanese firms employ Vietnamese labor, so does the Japanese.