Mei Xinyu, an associate researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with China Business News (Weibo) that as one of the world's major industrial and exporting countries, the earthquake that Japan suffered will inevitably have a visible impact on the world economy and industry. As far as China is concerned, the biggest negative impact on industry and foreign trade will be in the import field.
China imports a large number of Japanese high-tech products, upstream intermediate products and equipment. The capacity utilization rate of some industries, such as electronics and automobiles, may be reduced due to the stop of the supply of intermediate products in Japan, and some new construction and renovation projects may have to be slowed down due to the interruption of Japanese equipment production and delivery processes.
The enterprises that are most affected are those that import Japanese equipment, electromechanical, optical and other spare parts, because their imports from Japan are either less than the sources of imports, or they are part of the industrial division chain of "Japan's core parts-China's processed products-global market sales", and there is no way to find alternative sources of supply at the moment.
As one of the world's leading industrial and exporting countries, Japan suffered this earthquake, which will inevitably have a visible impact on the world economy and industry.
China imports a large number of Japanese high-tech products, upstream intermediate products and equipment. This is why China has a huge trade surplus with the United States and Europe and a huge trade deficit with Japan. Because of this, China's electronics, chemicals, automobiles and other industries may be affected by the suspension or reduction of Japanese products. In order to reduce losses, we can only find other products to replace them, such as the manufacture of display screens. In order to make up for the supply, we have to turn to Korean, China, Taiwan Province and other cheap products that are not as reliable as Japanese products, or European and American products that are reliable in quality but expensive.
At the same time, because the export system in the Japanese market has stopped, it means that the market needs other substitutes to fill the gap. This is also a great opportunity for our processing trade manufacturers in China. So as to promote its transformation from labor-intensive enterprises to capital-intensive enterprises or technology-intensive enterprises.
After the earthquake damage, it caused losses such as customers and market share. I believe that many Japanese capital-intensive and technology-intensive enterprises that were unwilling to invest and produce in China before will consider transferring part of their production capacity to China to expand their markets.
After the earthquake, the Japanese government will inevitably sell foreign creditor's rights (such as US Treasury bonds, and Japan is the largest holder after China) and mobilize funds for domestic disaster relief, so the exchange rate of the yen against the US dollar may rise accordingly. In anticipation of the yen's rise, people who borrow low-interest yen for international arbitrage are eager to withdraw funds to repay the yen loans that will appreciate, which will further boost the yen. The proportion of the Japanese yen in a basket of currencies is second only to the euro, so the appreciation of the Japanese yen will inevitably lower the US dollar index, which is also a situation that Washington does not want to see at present (so it is in a hurry to get on the aircraft carrier for disaster relief). The "pressure" of the US dollar index is a big plus for the euro.
2. Due to the high level of Japanese debt, Japanese government debt accounts for 200% of the total GDP. Japan's bond market is likely to affect the global market and cause a chain reaction.
After the earthquake in Japan, there are countless aftershocks of magnitude 6 or so. When the earth enters a period of frequent activities, any disaster may occur, which will stimulate hot money to flow into the gold market as a hedging tool, leading to higher gold prices.
Japan's stock market is bound to have a big decline after the earthquake, especially the stocks of some seriously damaged industrial automotive electronics companies will be sold by investors. It is also difficult to judge whether the Asia-Pacific stock market will be affected by this. However, I personally think that the China stock market is generally a "demon", and this time it is often the opposite (lack of logic, hehe).
Of course, these need to be treated dialectically. The super earthquake will not change Japan's status as an economic power, but may only cause short-term fluctuations in the financial market, just like 1995 after the Hanshin earthquake in Japan. In the long run, it will not only have little impact on the Japanese economy, but also make huge recovery investment create driving demand. So we use an old saying of China to describe it: A blessing in disguise is a blessing in disguise!
After the Japanese earthquake, many official media in China claimed that it had little impact on China. I'm thinking that the radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant explosion has little impact on China, but economic officials dare not pat their heads and say that it has little impact. As discussed in the previous paragraph, it is hard to say whether the appreciation of the yen will increase China's export advantage. Although China is Japan's largest trading partner, Japan has shifted the production of some labor-intensive or resource-intensive commodities, and the appreciation of its currency may not have much impact on the exports of other countries such as China. However, the appreciation of the yen means the depreciation of the US dollar, which will increase the pressure on China to hold US Treasury bonds.