Quote:
Originally Posted by kirakira
Sangetsu, you are on drugs. China is Japan's biggest trading partner and 3rd largest importer of Japanese goods (in 2007).
Shanghai has the largest expat Japanese community in the world.
It's not just pocky China buys, it's trains, infrastructure, environmental technology etc. However, these figures are not accurate as many many Japanese firms set up subsidiary and produce goods locally (and selling local), including Avex, who is importing Chinese talent into Japan these days.
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I've been to Shanghai, and other parts of China, and so far I'm not impressed. China seeks to eclipse America as the world's greatest power, and all efforts made by the Chinese government in the last decade have been made toward this end.
Japan does not want to see this happen, regardless of what the politicians say. A greater China means a diminished America, and by extension, a diminished Japan.
China is a major trading partner with Japan, but then so is America. How balanced exactly is this trade? America is China's largest trading partner, but this trade is pretty much a one-way street, with the Chinese exporting vast amounts of products, while importing very little. Of $243 billion in trade between China and America, $201 billion went to China, and $42 billion went to America. Japan is the largest exporter of goods to China, sending China $79 billion worth of goods; but China's exports to Japan outweighed that amount by $28 billion.
China at the moment is importing goods and culture just as the Japanese did in the second half of the 19th century. Asia and the rest of the thinking world remembers where this road eventually led. China will import the minimum, just enough to copy it and reproduce it (China is famous for ignoring patents and copyrights). At one point these technologies will be wholly produced in China, and the necessity for importing them will end.
I see this as a problem for America, Japan, and other industrialized nations. China's rise can only come at our expense. That may be selfish, but looking after our own interests first is natural. Don't believe for a minute that China is thinking any differently.