3 ms·
East Asia after a period of sustained growth is experiencing serious headwinds. Japan: Japanese bonds is taking a breather but a continued strengthening of USD
by asakusaa 4y ago
East Asia after a period of sustained growth is experiencing serious headwinds.
Japan: Japanese bonds is taking a breather but a continued strengthening of USD will put serious risk of currency devaluation and its stock market is largely owned by the Japanese central banks.
Taiwan: Not good. DPP made a major election mistake by ignoring that many Taiwanese want to keep the status quo as the reality of their security situation hits-If the US and coalition wanted to defend Taiwan it would start building military bases, so far all they've done is the same approach to Ukraine-talk them over the edge and when conflict breaks out supply them with severely limited weaponry to not escalate risk by being directly involved.
Korea: Major 3ish sigma event coming to its household debt, pension pyramid scheme blowing up, municipal and government bonds tied to a rapidly deflating real estate bubble, the loss of China, its biggest trading partner, responsible for a huge chunk of its GDP. With increased competition from Taiwan's TSMC and its status as a sort of canary in the mine for global trade activity, all of this is creating a perfect storm. But the biggest punch will be its birth rate and it will be forced to turn to uptaking massive number of migrant workers, possible north korean collapse. I would grade Korea to be the first piece of the domino to trigger another Asian Financial Crisis. This time with much reduced bargaining chip as globalization is being phased out and you see all the investments being made outside their respective countries.
China: Major policy errors have put CCP in an impossible place. It's increasingly looking like Russia prior to invading Ukraine. Rapidly declining economy and aging population with accelerating low birth rate. They will not wait until Japan has finished building up its military. There's an angle to this lockdown system in that its a major way to mobilize and isolate large chunks of the population and unfortunately combined with the surveillance apparatus (the largest internal security on earth) and low morale amongst its people contribute to even more urgency to begin conflict.