Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
Japan's historic economic comeback shows just how screwed
China is right now (2/2)
Business Insider -Linette Lopez
Sun, March 31, 2024 at 10:57 a.m. PDT
(continue)
How Beijing will handle it
I don't need to tell you that China and Japan have very different
social and political systems. But it's important to recognize that China is
entering its real-estate crisis under very different economic circumstances:
GDP per capita is about $12,800, compared with $41,266 in Japan when its
property bubble burst. There are some useful comparisons, however. When Japan
entered its downturn, its relative economic size compared with the US was
similar to China's now. Both are confronting what it means to manage a
debt-laden economy losing its dynamism while demographic changes result in a
shrinking workforce. These are long-term, structural problems with solutions
we're just now coming to understand. But now — just as some hard-line Japanese
believed back in the 1990s — Chinese policymakers think they'll weather this
because their economy has room to grow, can mobilize its domestic market, and
will find plenty of trading partners even if its relationship with the US has
soured.
When the Japanese economy crashed in 1990, it took the government years to come to the conclusion to enact the fiscal stimulus that economists now consider the first line of defense against a deflationary shock. Early efforts to stimulate were wishy-washy. For example, a generous fiscal package in 1995 was countered with austerity in 1996 and 1997, according to analysts from the Peterson Institute. It took years for policymakers to get their mix right.
"The Chinese are talking about it every day, they understand what kind of disease they contracted," Koo said. "Whether that translates into a speedy, sufficient, and sustained stimulus, we haven't got there yet."
While it took Japan years to come around to the idea of stimulus, China may never get there. Xi Jinping has shown few signs he's willing to rain money down on the country's starved local governments or even on households to spur consumption. He doesn't really believe in handing money to consumers to let them do whatever they want with it. Instead, Xi's solution is to get China's monumental manufacturing machine to make higher-value goods. This continues the state's control over the economy since the state directs banks where to lend and, in Xi's opinion, sets China up to have the kind of economy that would rival other world powers. So Beijing is going all in on building the hard goods of the future: electric vehicles, semiconductors, cellphones, computer screens. He wants Chinese companies to buy all those things from Chinese manufacturers as well, creating an ecosystem of technology that would dominate markets.
And Xi wants the rest of the world to buy these goods from that ecosystem. This is where trade conflict comes in. The first time China became a manufacturing juggernaut, in the early 2000s, the world embraced it. Policymakers thought that integrating China into the global economy would make it a more open society and that the wins for some US companies would outweigh the downsides for others. But we've found that wasn't the case. Instead, the world was hit by what economists now call the "China shock," which stripped the US of its manufacturing base and left whole communities without good jobs.
Given this experience, any whiff of a new China shock will almost certainly result in the world pushing back. Policymakers are unwilling to allow even more crucial productions and jobs to be shipped off and out, leaving angry voters and instability behind. Japan's leaders mostly ignored nationalist hard-liners who were angry at the US in the 1990s and focused on having a good relationship with the US, as it needed the richest country in the world to buy its goods. China is taking a different tack: Even as Xi invites US leaders to China to talk about how open the country is, American brands are getting walloped, US offices have been raided by Chinese officials, and financial firms and consultancies are moving out of China. Not even the Chinese stock market's veritable collapse over the past few months interests investors, with Goldman Sachs warning clients to stay away. There's cheap, and then there's dangerous.
Because of these adversarial circumstances, it's unclear how much the world will be able to buy what China is selling at any price. This is one of Beijing's biggest stumbling blocks. Tokyo was able to pull itself off the mat in part because when the yen fell, the world was OK with that. Japan, after shutting down nuclear plants, started importing energy, and there was less of a trade imbalance between it and the rest of the world. China's balance of trade is still skewed toward exports, which means if the yuan falls, its goods get cheaper and can flood markets.
Even without a currency war with Beijing, the world is building defenses against another wave of Chinese goods. Brasília just launched an antidumping investigation into whether China is flooding Brazil with cheap goods. Turkey recently tightened regulations on EVs shipped from China. And China's EV exports to the European Union started the year down almost 20% after regulators announced an investigation into Beijing's financial support of the industry.
The most crucial difference between China's balance-sheet recession and Japan's may be emotional. Throughout Japan's recovery, markets worked from a cooperative ideological mindset, believing free trade was good. As China begins its recovery, that cooperation has turned adversarial. Ultimately, that may mean the difference between China continuing its rise or staying stuck in a debt trap. In the end, technology may not save China if it doesn't have the right friends to buy it all.
Linette Lopez is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.
Translation
（繼續）
北京將如何處理
不用我說，中國和日本有著截然不同的社會和政治制度。 但重要的是要認識到，中國在截然不同的經濟環境下進入房地產危機：人均GDP約為12,800美元，而日本房地產泡沫破裂時的人均GDP為41,266美元。 然而，有一些比較是有用的。 當日本進入低迷時期時，其與美國的相對經濟規模與現在的中國相似。 兩國都認識到什麼是去管理負債累累、失去活力、人口變化導致勞動力萎縮的經濟。 這些都是長期的結構性問題，我們現在才剛剛领悟到解決的方案。 目前 - 正如一些強硬派日本人在上世紀90
年代所相信的那樣 - 中國政策制定者認為他們能夠渡過難關，因為他們的經濟有成長空間，可以調動國內市場，並且會找到大量貿易夥伴，即使與美國關係已經惡化了。
1990年日本經濟崩潰時，政府花了數年時間才得出實施財政刺激措施的結論，經濟學家現在認為這是抵禦通貨緊縮衝擊的第一道防線。 早期的刺激努力是徒勞無功的。 例如，Peterson
Institute 的分析師表示，1995 年慷慨的財政計劃遭到 1996 年和 1997 年的緊縮政策的抵銷。 政策制定者花了數年時間才得到正確的組合。
Koo說: 「中國人每天都在談論這個問題，他們了解自己感染了什麼樣的疾病」; 「無論這是否會轉化為快速、充分和持續的刺激措施，這一地步的轉化我們還沒有達到」。
儘管日本花了數年時間才去接受刺激經濟方案，但中國可能永遠不會到達這一步。 幾乎沒有跡象表明習近平願意向該國陷入困境的地方政府, 甚至向家庭投入大量資金以刺激消費。 他不會真的相信去把錢交給消費者讓他們做他們想做的事。 取而代之是，習近平的解決方案是讓中國龐大的製造機器生產更高價值的商品。 這延續了國家對經濟的控制，因為國家指導銀行在哪裡放貸，在習近平看來，這讓中國擁有了可以與其他世界強國競爭的經濟。 因此，北京正在全力打造未來的硬商品：電動車、半導體、手機、電腦螢幕。 他希望中國公司也從中國製造商那裡購買所有這些東西，從而創造一個主導市場的技術生態系統。
習近平希望世界其他國家從該生態系統購買這些商品。 這就是貿易衝突的根源。2000 年代初，中國首次成為製造業巨頭，全世界都接受了它。 各國政策制定者認為，將中國融入全球經濟將使中國成為一個更開放的社會，並且一些美國公司的得益將超額補償對其他美國公司的負面影響。 但大家發現事實並非如此。 相反，世界受到了經濟學家現在所說的「中國衝擊」的打擊，它剝奪了美國的製造業基礎，並使整個社區失去了好工。
鑑於這一經驗，只要出現任何新的中國衝擊的輕微氣味, 幾乎肯定會導致世界的抵制。 各國政策制定者不願意讓更重要的生產和工作離開，從而導至出現憤怒的選民和不穩。 日本領導人大多無視了 20 世紀 90 年代對美國感到憤怒的民族主義強硬派，並專注於與美國保持良好關係，因為日本需要世界上最富有的國家購買其商品。 中國現採取了不同的策略：儘管習近平邀請美國領導人來中國談論中國的開放程度，但美國的品牌卻遭到打擊，美國人的辦事處遭到中國官員的突襲搜查，金融公司和顧問公司正在撤離中國。 就連中國股市過去幾個月真正的崩盤也沒有引起投資者的興趣，高盛警告客戶要遠離。 是有便宜，也有危險。
由於這些敵對的環境，目前還不清楚全球來說, 能夠以什麼價格購買多少中國正在銷售的產品。 這是北京最大的障礙之一。 東京能夠擺脫困境，部分原因是當日圓貶值時，世界對此表示可以接受。 日本關閉核電廠後開始進口能源，與世界其他國家之間的貿易不平衡程度有所減輕。 中國的貿易平衡仍然偏向出口，這意味著如果人民幣貶值，其商品就會變得更便宜並可能湧入市場。
因此，如果有任何跡象表明北京允許人民幣貶值以便向我們出售更多東西，我不能想像華盛頓會發出怎樣的尖叫聲。
即使沒有與北京爆發貨幣戰，世界也正在建立防禦措施，抵禦另一波中國商品。 巴西利亞剛剛對中國是否向巴西大量進口廉價商品發起了反傾銷調查。 土耳其最近收緊了對從中國出口的電動車的監管。 在歐盟監管機構宣布對北京對電動車行業的財政支持進行調查後，中國出口歐盟的電動車今年年初下降了近
20%。
中國的資產負債表衰退與日本的資產負債表衰退之間最關鍵的區別可能是在情緒上的。 在日本的復甦過程中，市場以合作的意識形態心態運作，相信自由貿易是好的。 隨著中國開始復甦，這種合作變成了對抗。 最終，這可能意味著中國是會繼續崛起還是深陷債務陷阱定出了分別。 最終，如果沒有合適的朋友來購買，科技可能無法拯救中國。
So, this is an interesting
comparation between Japan and China in dealing with a downturn in economy. It
represents view points of the writer in seeing the economic situation of China.
One of his arguments is that China is different from Japan, and that things
workable in Japan may not yield the same result in China because of their
different political system. Also, the author predicts that the road to recovery
for China will be very difficult. I am interested in knowing how true will this
prediction be.
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