Japan is facing another major challenge, with a 100 billion market export being obstructed, and its last straw of salvation has been completely cut off by China. Will Japan really lose the next decade?
Recently, Japan can only be described as restless. First, the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea led to international condemnation, followed by the discovery of a large number of dead fish along the Japanese coast, and then a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck, truly one wave has not subsided before another rises.
Now, Japan's export of koi fish to China has also been suspended. The reason is that the export license has expired. So why not renew it? I believe Japan knows this better than we do.
Speaking of Japanese koi, they are known as swimming gems. In 2018, a Japanese koi named "S Legend" was sold for a staggering price of approximately 130 million yuan, becoming the most expensive in the world.
In fact, since the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water, when our country comprehensively restricted the import of Japanese aquatic products, Japanese koi became the fish that slipped through the net. According to preliminary statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Finance, in September of this year, the import of Japanese aquatic products by our country decreased by 99.3% year-on-year, and among this 0.7% of imported aquatic products, Japanese koi accounted for 95%.
We all know that China is the largest importer of Japanese aquatic products. Data from the Japanese Fisheries Agency shows that last year, China's import volume of aquatic products accounted for 22.5% of Japan's total export volume. According to domestic industry analysis, the market size of China's koi industry reached 112.3 billion yuan in 2017, which is 10.7 times the size in just 12 years.
This means that China has completely cut off Japan's last straw of aquatic product export salvation, and the hundred-billion-level koi market is once again out of Japan's reach.If it is said that China's complete restriction on the import of Japanese seafood would not necessarily cause a recession in the Japanese economy, then let's take a look at what issues Japan will face in the next 10 years.
Firstly, the consequences of Japan's nuclear wastewater discharge into the sea are not as simple as China restricting the import of Japanese seafood. This is because, with Japan's reputation becoming notorious, international trade frictions with Japan will only intensify in the next decade. The affected products will not be limited to seafood, and the affected importing countries will not be limited to China.
Secondly, Japan has been following the United States in restricting the export of high-end industries to China. Even American media are now expressing that containing China's high-end industries is counterproductive, as it promotes the rise of China's high-end industries while slowing down the development of the technology industries in Western countries. New energy vehicles are the best example of this.
Speaking of which, Japan is the country with the most severe aging population in the world, and the automotive industry is one of Japan's three core industries. If Japan cannot distinguish between the big and the small kings and follows the crowd blindly, then the development of Japan's core industries will definitely be hindered. Japan does not have the ability to have multiple arms like the United States, which would be a fatal blow to the Japanese economy. The key is that losing the high ground in high-end industries, coupled with a shortage of labor, will further slow down the development of the Japanese economy.
Furthermore, in the next 10 years, whether the US dollar can continue its world hegemony is uncertain, but what we know is that the path to global de-dollarization will definitely accelerate. Therefore, in order to stabilize the hegemonic position of the US dollar, the United States will definitely disregard the safety of other countries and harvest the world's "leeks" more ruthlessly. As the largest holder of US debt and a country overly dependent on the US economy, Japan will be the most affected economy at that time.
