Our New World

The End of the Japanese Miracle

The great industrial miracle of post-WW2 Japan seems to be coming to an end.

Its world domination in electronic innovation and quality manufacturing – think Beta and VHS, walkman, CD, Blu-Ray DVD, Nintendo, PlayStation, Toyota, Honda, etc. – is rapidly ending.

South Korea is the new East Asian king, with Samsung and LG in electronics and Hyundai and Kia rushing past their Japanese rivals. Meanwhile, the USA – through Apple, Microsoft (including X-box), Google and Facebook – has returned to pre-eminence in the world of computers and the Web.

Today, Japan faces a triple whammy that will make it less and less competitive:

1.      an aging and shrinking population thanks to a negative birth rate of 1.29 (replacement rate is 2.1)¹

2.     a cultural mental-block that refuses to allow replacement ‘foreign immigration’

3.      the end of cheap nuclear power after the 2011 earthquake/tsunami disaster at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Imported oil and liquefied natural gas from North America is far more expensive, but the citizens of Japan wish no more Fukushima-like  – or worse, Hiroshima-like     -- experiences.  (One plant has been restarted in early July, but wait for the backlash in protests and the upcoming elections.)

Honda has already switched the manufacture of its Fit vehicle to China, and now Toyota is doing the same with its Yaris subcompact – this time relocating to France – of all places.²

Major manufacturing ‘at home’ will soon be a thing of the past – unless Japan addresses its birthrate crisis and xenophobic immigration policies.

 1.     http://savingjapan.net/2011/03/31/formspring-response-japans-flagging-birth-rate/