Can Tokyo spur growth – without tumbling? | DW News
Japan sits on a mountain of debt – and a famously sluggish economy. Can new prime minister Sanae Takaichi spur growth without scaring away lenders? A recent bond selloff points to the challenges she faces — and the consequences for the rest of the world.
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#japan #debt #economy
32 Comments
Stop thinking that Japan's situation is the same as in other countries. Japan's debt is mainly held by Japanese people, investors, institutions, and banks. The amount the Japanese government owes to other people or countries, is near zero. The Japanese people will not see their own government default, as such the risk of external pressure to pay up, like what happened to Greece is extremely unlikely.
China's debt to GDP ratio official estimate maybe 88 % but World Bank/IMF and other institutions estimate it to be greater than 100% similar to the U.S. and without the deep transparent financial markets present in the U.S. Chinese money is going to flow into Japan instead !
Foreign investors are playing game with cash withdrawn from Chinese market. Play your game in your country.
I believe in Japan 🙂 in all of us in this situation lol 🇨🇦
The first time I’ve heard the part about Japan hoping for rate decreases prob coming in March. I had read a month or so ago, interest rates needed to increase bc the price of gold is crazy. It seems too late for that, so I think this makes a lot of sense.
It's ok, USA Daddy will come and save Japan.
Please read about unit 731, Bataan death march and Kanto massacre. 🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫
This is going to destroy the dollar with sale of US debt, and I'm here for it. lol. Time for the Yen to strengthen to get Japan out of this hole and become an even stronger SUPER POWER. It needs to do start economic growth and strengthen it's defense due to China. It is not a pacifist country any longer, due to America and China.
China: Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba
Korea: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix
Taiwan: TSMC
Japan: ….🤔
Top-tier East Asian Companies List
borrowed in Yen. When Yen crushes, will return in US or other dollars.
you're crazy if you are still buying US bonds and US treasuries… buy gold and silver
Japan isn’t being watched because it’s winning —
but because it hasn’t fallen.
That distinction matters in a world without clear centers.
Japan selling off their American government bonds is the last nail in the coffin
While the Japanese government has roughly ¥1,577 trillion in liabilities, it also holds about ¥1,049 trillion in assets.
The often-cited claim of “more than ¥1,300 trillion in debt” focuses only on the liability side. After netting out assets, the net debt is about ¥528 trillion.
Moreover, the Bank of Japan holds about 53% of yen-denominated Japanese government bonds (JGBs). Most of the rest is held by domestic households and financial institutions, while foreign investors hold only around 14%.
In other words, Japan’s government debt is largely held domestically and circulates within the domestic economy, so portraying it as a simple “national debt crisis” is misleading. This DW video is disinformation.
dont forget also that japan is now a superaged society and nobody is having kids there now, meaning that the treasury has to support healthcare for a bunch of people with no money coming in
Here comes another Japanese decline from the result of introducing inflation when the country is having a debt and demographic crisis. Now that inflation is here, the economy did not improve.
Before inflation, the government enjoyed extremely low interest rates. The businesses did not reinvest and saved, but at least they are doing fine. Workers want more pay, but at least they don't have worse pay next year.
Now the economic policy involves further spending, including cutting businesses' taxes when businesses are doing fine, while having a debt and demographic crisis.
An absolute "Yes"! Dump US Treasury Bills. Turn the page on its war history with China. Get out of the G7 Net. Work with the rest of the world.
As a middle class. I can only contribute by not buying American brands if possible. Lots of alternatives.
The fact is that Japan's fiscal situation has dramatically improved. The government's debt-to-GDP ratio improved from 258.4% in 2020 to 229.6% in 2025. Tax revenue rose from 60.8 trillion yen in 2020 to 80.7 trillion yen in 2025, driven by strong export industries benefiting from a weaker yen. It may be hard to believe, but among G7 nations, Japan will have the strongest fiscal position in its national budget for fiscal year 2025. The Japanese economy has ended two decades of deflation and returned to a normal state with 2-3% inflation.
Japan is an economic colony of the United States. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been arguing since taking office that Japan's interest rates should be raised. The Bank of Japan authorities are simply following his orders and raising interest rates. I doesn't understand why a female analyst is concerned about rising interest rates in Japan.
The nominal debt of the Japanese government is 1,200 trillion yen, which is huge, but 95% of that debt is owned by Japanese citizens or Japanese institutions. If you subtract the assets held by the Japanese government from the nominal debt, it comes to about 700 trillion yen, or about 5 trillion dollars, which is less than Japan's GDP and external assets combined. I don't think the government debt that the female analyst is talking about is a problem at all.
The serious debt problem is not just Japan… Europe zone has problems as well . But because Japanese debt is enough to destroy the world economy….. the power of destruction more than nuke explosion… modern war is unnecessary to use gunpowder
The only thing Japan actually needs to look at is inflation, and how to control inflation is their biggest problem, because their debts are all from their own government and banks. How to control the inflation caused by these printed money.
They pulled themselves out of the deflationary quagmire through quantitative easing, and now they are stuck in the inflationary quagmire. And due to the long-term low interest policy of the Japanese government, a large amount of capital has flowed into overseas assets, resulting in a particularly weak ability of the country to cope with inflation.
Tokyo will survive only US releases Japan from economic slavery.
Do not forget that the Bank of Japan has still purchased 2.9 trillion yen (approximately $18.4 billion to $18.9 billion) of the Japanese Government Bonds this January alone.
"Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) are 100% yen-denominated domestic bonds, with approximately 88% held by domestic investors, including about 53% held by the Bank of Japan (BoJ). Even if interest payments increase, a fiscal crisis is unlikely to occur immediately because the BoJ's earnings are returned to the government as payments to the national treasury."
and you have the face to call yourself a legacy media, when you don't even know how to pronounce the name of Japanese PM accurately. don't you dare to say you have no clue about that before BECAUSE THERE IS A WEBSITE CALLED GOOGLE.
it's pronounced as SA-NA-E TA-KA-I-CHI, and she is the first female PM in Japanese history, even she might lose the election in the near future. butchering her name like that is so disrespectful, especially when you are a so called professional legacy media.
BTW there is always an obvious solution for the Japanese government: sell the US bonds and use those cash to do, well, whatever needs to be done.
What do you expect from a nation trying to revive its imperialistic militaristic glory days no matter the cost…….
Why are we only asking Chinese analysts to talk about Japan?
can this channel find a normal japanese analyst with less bias⁇ I guess you don't care about Asians or its market.
Sinzo Abe initiated Japanese economy's decline with his misguided economic policies in 2012 and now Takaichi is so eager to pick up Abe's failed policies and further weaken Japanese currency and economy.
I’m Japanese, and while it’s hard to say that everyday life has clearly improved, I do feel that economic activity itself has become more active due to the weaker yen.
During the period of strong yen and deflation, unemployment was higher, and there was a much stronger sense of stagnation and deadlock.