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This debt is currently 2.5 times Japan’s annual GDP, which means that even if Japan’s entire country does not eat or drink, and uses all of its income to cover this debt, it will take them two and a half years. Pay off completely.

To make matters worse, Japan’s fiscal deficit has maintained a continuous upward trend over the years. In 2017, Japan’s debt as a proportion of GDP was twice that of Greece and four times that of Spain. Japan’s government debt is equivalent to the total government debt of the 17 countries in the euro area, and the total population of the euro area countries is three times that of Japan.

In order to stimulate the economy, after the successful bid for the Olympics in 2013, Japan spent 7 years, costing 3 trillion yen(approximately 193.3 billion yuan)< /span> to prepare for this sporting event. The Olympic Games are still in a distant future due to an epidemic, and the investment in the early stage is equal to the slack, making Japan’s already weak economy worse.

New National Stadium

The problem is that almost every country in the world is in debt, but why does Japan’s debt problem appear so serious?

This is because the mainThe holders are Japanese nationals, companies, pension funds(many of which are government funds)and the Bank of Japan.

In order to minimize the interest repayments, the Japanese government has to keep interest rates low, but the size of its national debt and the number of elderly and retired people means that debt interest, health and social security expenditures will consume most of the government’s tax revenue .

If things go on like this,the Japanese government’s investment in education, research and development, infrastructure construction, and other economic growth engines will be reduced, and these investments are precisely what stimulates the economy.

Ultimately, the older generation of Japanese will become the main holders of their country’s debts, and they will directly use their money or directly (buy government bonds) or indirectly (receiving your own pension from pension funds that invest heavily in government bonds) to invest in government bonds.

The younger generation of Japanese is mainly responsible for repaying interest on government debt, because they are still working and paying taxes. Therefore, in fact, Japan’s debt represents the expenditure of the younger generation to the older generation, which will lead to a kind of intergenerational conflict, and it is equivalent to turning Japan’s future into collateral.

As the younger generation population in Japan is shrinking and the elderly population is growing, this mortgage is growing day by day.

What’s more terrible is that the Japanese economy is deep in the curse of deflation. In order to stimulate the economy, the Bank of Japan announced that it will achieve the 2% inflation rate target. Abe’s 7-year tenure has not only failed to pass “Abenomics” Realized, but also “ran out of policy toolboxes.” The crux of the problem lies in: Japan’s huge debt restricts fiscal policy space.

Going back to the beginning, Abe mentioned the “8 unresolved issues”, of which three: ending deflation, the Tokyo Olympics, and the new crown issues are actually talking about the economy, and the substantive problems behind Japan’s economic development are It lies in its own huge debt.

2. Demographic issues: young people who don’t want to have children

The fundamental problems in the country widely recognized by the Japanese also include: the status of women, the low and declining birth rate, the declining population, and the aging population. These four issues are causal and entangled with each other, and almost become an insoluble “endless loop”.

The 1947 Japanese Constitution, which was drafted by the U.S. government that occupied Japan after World War II and still has legal force, contains a clause stipulating gender equality. Therefore, in theory, Japanese men and women have equal status.

But in reality, the social barriers that Japanese women face on the road to equality are more serious than that of any wealthy industrialized country except South Korea.

In family life,the general Japanese view is: mothers should stay at home and take care of their children by themselves, rather than going out to workMade.

Wives have almost taken on all the responsibilities of raising children and caring for the husband and both parents. At the same time, they have to manage the family income and expenditure in their free time, which almost exhausted the life of Japanese women. Many married women in Japan vowed not to let the next generation of women be tied to these family responsibilities as hard as they are.

This has a direct result: The birth rate is low and declining.

The birth rate is low and declining, which is very common in developed countries. However, Japan’s birth rate is almost the lowest in the world-only 7 newborns per 1,000 people per year, and the world average is 19. Not only that, Japan’s inherently low birth rate is still declining.

This directly leads to two other important issues that Japanese people are generally aware of: One is the declining total population, and the other is the aging of the population.

It is predicted that from the current development trend and age distribution of Japan’s population, By 2060, Japan’s population will decrease by another 40 million. By that time, the country’s total population will become 80 million.

And the life expectancy of Japanese citizens is the longest among all countries in the world.(It is 84 years old, the life expectancy of American nationals is 77 years, while the life expectancy of nationals in many African countries is only 40~45 years), the proportion of the elderly population in the total population It is also the highest in the world.

As a senior evolutionary biology and biogeographer, Diamond bluntly pointed out in “The Upheaval”, Lack of the impetus needed for economic growth, population growth, and Japan, whose population is declining Losing wealth, its strength on the world stage will gradually weaken.

Therefore, when Shinzo Abe became prime minister for the second time in 2015, he announced that the government will work to maintain the Japanese population at least 100 million. The specific method is to increase Japan’s total fertility rate from 1.4. To 1.8.

But in fact, the decision on the number of newborns is not in the hands of the Abe government, but in the hands of young people in Japan, but young people just don’t want to get married and have children-this question seems to have reverted to the beginning of this paragraph …

This question directly echoes one of the eight unresolved problems mentioned by Abe: Older age and fewer birthrates.

3. Issues left over from history: relations with neighboring countries are always tense

Another one by JapanThe serious issue that has been overlooked is the Japan’s actions to the people of China and the Korean Peninsula during World War II have an impact on today’s Sino-Japanese relations and Japan’s relations with the Korean Peninsula.

Everyone is already familiar with this history. Before and during World War II, Japan treated people in other Asian regions, especially those in China and the Korean Peninsula, very cruelly.

In stark contrast, the history classes in Japanese schools now rarely talk about (or leave it alone) The role of the aggressor country, but emphasizes that Japan is the victim(two atomic bombs killed about 1.2 million Japanese people) and blames the United States for deliberately inducing Japan Become the initiator of this war.

What many people don’t know is that 10% of the victims killed by the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima were actually from the Korean Peninsula. Hard labor

As a result, as Diamond said in “The Upheaval”: People in China and the Korean peninsula today generally hate Japan because, in the eyes of the people in China and the Korean peninsula Japan has not yet fully acknowledged the atrocities it committed during the war. It has not apologized or expressed regret.

In this regard, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, once said:

“I really can’t understand why the Japanese don’t want to admit the past anyway… The current attitude of the Japanese predicts their future behavior. Only when they feel ashamed of their past, the probability that they will repeat the same mistakes in the future Will become smaller.”

Li Guangyao

Not only that, Diamond further pointed out that Japan has also had territorial disputes with China and South Korea because of the small islands without a trace. These islands are only valued for the fishery, oil and gas and mineral resources in the seas nearby.

In 2017, Abe made a televised speech, claiming to strive to implement the new constitution in 2020 and set a timetable for breaking through the “peace constitution.”

What’s more serious is that in the past 7 years when Shinzo Abe served as prime minister, he also hoped that through amending the peace constitution, Japan would have a regular army to deal with the problems created in East Asia because of its avoidance on historical issues. An atmosphere of safety and distrust.

In 2017, Abe tried to amend the constitution, but it was resisted by citizens

The “8 unresolved issues” mentioned by Abe in his resignation speech have four issues: the Japan-North Korea issue, the Japan-Russia peace treaty, the constitutional amendment, and the northern territories. They are all related to history and almost occupy Japan’s current difficulties. Half of the country.

Combined with the above facts, as written in “The Upheaval”: Japan has laid a huge long-term hidden danger for itself, and historical issues have always been hanging over Japan like the sword of Damocles.

4. Management of natural resources: unlimited mining

At this point, Ashin has re-categorized and sorted out the eight “unfinished issues” mentioned by Prime Minister Abe through “debt issues,” “population issues,” and “historical issues. Important issues have not really surfaced, and this is a huge blind spot for observing Japan.

Diamond pointed out that, since modern times, resource pressure has been a major curse facing Japan, and it is still the case today, and the Japanese also believe that they liveIn a resource-poor country.

The explosive growth of the Japanese population since 1853, the continuous improvement of Japanese people’s living standards and consumption levels, a large number of people squeezed into a small space, and the development of modern industrialization requires key raw materials, Japan has become one of the world’s largest importers of natural resources.

Therefore, the Japanese have good reasons for the global fishery and forestry resources they rely on. It should be Japan’s rational approach to play an exemplary and leading role in sustainable exploitation.

Corresponding to this, the Chinese people are very impressed: the Japanese are very good at sorting garbage and saving resources

Diamond said, Maybe we are all bewildered by appearances. The actual situation is just the opposite of our “stereotype”: According to his research, Japan seems to be Instead of supporting it, it is the most opposed developed country.

Regardless of whether it is per capita or as a percentage of total forest product imports, Japan’s imports of illegally and unsustainably obtained forest products far exceed those of the United States or the EU Member states. Japan has also taken the lead in opposing the prudential regulation of marine fisheries and whaling.

Diamond believes that the reason why Japan is like this is because, in the past 140 years, they have established a false perception of natural resources, that is, Japan believes that it has unlimited access to global natural resources. Mining rights, and use it as the core of national security and the cornerstone of foreign policy.

But just last week, due to changes in the marine environment, Japan encountered the first “saury shortage” in history, and the fishing result that lasted for nearly a week was rarely zero:

In addition to mass consumer products such as saury, bluefin tuna is also facing survival crisis. This expensive fish is made into sashimi or sushi in Japan. Due to overfishing, the amount of this tuna is dropping sharply. .

In 2010, someone requested international protection for the stock of bluefin tuna, and proposed to include it in the appendix of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Instead of actively initiating the proposal, Japan regarded its success as hindering the passage of the proposal. For a diplomatic victory, thisIt’s incredible.

Today, if Japan does not change its understanding of global natural resources, then defeat is inevitable—not because of failure in military conquest, but because of And the exploitation of non-renewable resources will eventually come to an end.

Can these problems that Japan is facing in the next 10 years be solved?

Compared with the Perry Knocking incident in 1853, which ended Japan’s long-term lock-up policy, and the nearly devastating defeat experienced in August 1945, the current problems facing Japan may not be so terrible.

This article is from WeChat official account:CITIC Publishing Group (ID: citicpub), the original title “The Prime Minister resigns, the population declines, the fishery resources are exhausted, and the debt reaches the total of 17 countries. Where is Japan’s future? “Author: A letter, Editor: Chu flag