Analysis: IMF warning on China puts 'Japanization' risk in spotlight
Analysis: IMF warning on China puts 'Japanization' risk in spotlight
Hiroshi Wanatabe, Japan's former top currency diplomat, recalls how Chinese policymakers eagerly studied ways to avert a Japan-style burst of an asset bubble that led to prolonged deflation and economic stagnation - until around 2015.
Yeah I'm no economist but "Japanification" has always seemed like a likely outcome for China. Every so-called emerging economy eventually finishes its rapid growth phase, and then they'll be faced with slower or no growth, a shrinking population, and competition with cheaper countries with lower living standards.
It doesn't truly seem like such a bad thing to me, I mean the Japanese seems to be doing alright, but in terms of economic development it's a big downer.
China has risen way less in terms of GDP per capita, even using power purchasing parity estimates. Japan is at 52k $, China only at 23k (Wikipedia).
I cannot ultimately judge this but the common wisdom about the Chinese social contract seems to be that the citizens get comparatively high economic security for comparatively low civil liberties. And while China's pro-poor growth has certainly been more than impressive historically, I am not sure that the comparatively still low incomes especially in the inner parts of China are sufficient to maintain this social contract if growth does really slow down significantly.
Edit: I agree in general though that the state of Japan is probably not be as bad as it is made out to be in the article.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Hiroshi Wanatabe, Japan's former top currency diplomat, recalls how Chinese policymakers eagerly studied ways to avert a Japan-style burst of an asset bubble that led to prolonged deflation and economic stagnation - until around 2015.
Inflation is stalling and its deepening real estate crisis was identified as among the biggest risks to global growth during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting being held in Marrakech Oct. 9-15.
Some Japanese policymakers are voicing concern partly since a prolonged slump in Japan's biggest trading partner will deal a huge blow to their export-reliant economy.
In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF cut China's growth forecast for this year to 5.0% from 5.2% in April, and warned that its property sector crisis could deepen with global spillovers.
That contrasts with Japan, where slumping property prices left banks nationwide with a huge pile of bad loans, causing a broad-based credit crunch that prolonged the economic downturn.
For now, the IMF does not see a big risk of China sliding into deflation with inflation seen accelerating, backed by a recovery in demand, Krishna Srinivasan, director of the lender's Asia and Pacific Department, told a briefing on Friday.
The original article contains 547 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!