SUNDOWN FOR JAPAN?
Fears of being left behind by China and South Korea are fuelling visceral anger and xenophobia in Japan. But is the prognosis really so dire?
David McNeill
The Irish Times, October 29, 2010
EARLIER THIS year, with the rumblings from China’s economic juggernaut growing louder by the day, Japan’s conservative media began sounding alarm bells. In a 24-page feature in March, the right-leaning Sapio magazine warned that China was about to “buy up Japan”, noting how Chinese conglomerates were gobbling up real estate and resources – and even eyeing up uninhabited islands around Japan’s coast. Another magazine ran a front-page story entitled: Your next boss could be Chinese.
That was just a prelude to the orgy of national soul-searching accompanying the summer news that China had overtaken Japan as the world’s number two economy in dollar terms – a position Japan had held for four decades.
Tokyo announced second-quarter figures in August, putting the value of its economy at roughly $1.28 trillion, just behind China’s $1.33 trillion.
(...) [artículo aquí]
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