Investors who have bet against Japan in the past have been badly burned, grossly underestimating the Japanese people’s remarkable flexibility and resilience. But, while Japan’s ability to trudge on in the face of huge adversity is admirable, the risks of crisis ahead are surely greater than bond markets seem to recognize.
TOKYO – If you listen to American, European, or even Chinese leaders, Japan is the economic future no one wants. In selling massive stimulus packages and bank bailouts, Western leaders told their people, “We must do this or we will end up like Japan, mired in recession and deflation for a decade or more.”
Chinese leaders love pointing to Japan as the prime reason not to allow any significant appreciation of their conspicuously undervalued currency. “Western leaders forced Japan to let its currency rise in the second half of the 1980’s, and look at the disaster that followed.”
Yes, nobody wants to be Japan, the fallen angel that went from one of the fastest growing economies in the world for more than three decades to one that has slowed to a crawl for the past 18 years. No one wants to live with the trauma of the deflation (falling prices) that Japan has repeatedly experienced. No one wants to navigate the precarious government-debt dynamic that Japan faces, with debt levels far above 100% of GDP (even if one factors in the Japanese government’s vast holdings of foreign-exchange reserves.) No one wants to go from being a world-beater to a poster child for economic stagnation.
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TOKYO – If you listen to American, European, or even Chinese leaders, Japan is the economic future no one wants. In selling massive stimulus packages and bank bailouts, Western leaders told their people, “We must do this or we will end up like Japan, mired in recession and deflation for a decade or more.”
Chinese leaders love pointing to Japan as the prime reason not to allow any significant appreciation of their conspicuously undervalued currency. “Western leaders forced Japan to let its currency rise in the second half of the 1980’s, and look at the disaster that followed.”
Yes, nobody wants to be Japan, the fallen angel that went from one of the fastest growing economies in the world for more than three decades to one that has slowed to a crawl for the past 18 years. No one wants to live with the trauma of the deflation (falling prices) that Japan has repeatedly experienced. No one wants to navigate the precarious government-debt dynamic that Japan faces, with debt levels far above 100% of GDP (even if one factors in the Japanese government’s vast holdings of foreign-exchange reserves.) No one wants to go from being a world-beater to a poster child for economic stagnation.
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To read this article from our archive, please log in or register now. After entering your email, you'll have access to two free articles from our archive every month. For unlimited access to Project Syndicate, subscribe now.