Earlier this year, the data released by the Bank of Korea showed that the total GDP of South Korea in 2022 was 1.67 trillion US dollars, and the global ranking fell by 3 places, ranking 13th in the world, falling out of the top 10 ranks in the world.
South Korea, which had expected to continue to advance and surpass more powerful countries, suffered a sudden blow, and South Korean media have lamented that it is the wrong foreign policy of the Yoon Seok-yue government that has buried South Korea's great development prospects.
At the same time, there is a more pessimistic mood in South Korea, that is, the fear that South Korea will fall out of the ranks of developed countries.
Yin Xiyue
But South Korea did not have to be sad for long, because now there is a country in the same boat - Japan, which has always been regarded as a rival of South Korea, is suffering more than South Korea.
According to the AERA.dot news website, Japanese economist Yukio Noguchi said that "Japan is on the verge of breaking away from the developed world."
The cause of the matter is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released data this month showing that in terms of purchasing power parity, Japan's per capita GDP in 2022 is $42,000, which ranks 27th among the 40 "advanced economies" selected by the IMF from around the world.
Yukio Noguchi
Mr. Noguchi said Japan's ranking had fallen sharply in just a decade from 13th place in 2012, before Abenomics was implemented.
Mr Noguchi blamed the fall in the value of the yen and Japan's chronically low growth rate, while he also blamed an ageing society and a shortage of workers for dragging down the economy.
In practical terms, none of the reasons Mr. Noguchi summarized get to the root of the problem, which can explain some problems, but not why Japan and South Korea suddenly appear similar phenomena.
United States House of Representatives
What these claims fail to explain is that China's economy is on the rise, and even the Americans, who have always been on the Diaoyutai throne, unanimously passed a bill by Congress earlier this year that would certify China as a "developed country."
The simple truth is that at a time of dramatic change in history, the governments of both countries made serious strategic mistakes that caused great damage to their countries, so this was a human error, not an economic one.
1. From a historical perspective, Japan and South Korea have developed more than their neighboring regions, which is a special phenomenon.
Japan and South Korea are located on the edge of the continent, small land area, and lack of important resources, it is impossible for Japan and South Korea to maintain a high level of prosperity for a long time. This is a special historical opportunity, allowing Japan and South Korea to walk ahead of the neighboring countries.
Black ship incident
This opportunity is that in the past few hundred years, Marine civilization has occupied a dominant position in the world, and the appearance of the Asian continent is generally backward, and Japan and South Korea, which are in the marginal zone, have become the entrance of Marine civilization and the Asian continent.
As the hegemon of the world, the United States, out of the need to control the Eurasian plate, to build a fortress in Japan and South Korea, the outbreak of the Korean War, so that Japan ushered in the opportunity for development, the outbreak of the US-Vietnam War, and South Korea got a lot of American orders.
As long as the United States remains the dominant power in Asia, Japan and South Korea will have a lot to gain from following America.
American hegemony
This is because the United States must invest huge resources in Asia to suppress the entire region, but these resources cannot all be shipped from overseas, and Japan and South Korea are bound to take on some of the supporting work, which is the basis of rapid development in Japan and South Korea in the past decades.
In addition, in order to win over Japan and South Korea, the United States will also open some of its markets to them.
Today, however, the basis of this logic is being challenged, including the gradual loss of the original status of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, domestic economic, debt, racial problems, and growing reluctance to open its markets to Japan and South Korea.
American debt crisis
2. The wrong foreign policy has seriously impacted the export market of Japan and South Korea.
As two resource-poor countries, the importance of export for the economic development of Japan and South Korea is self-evident, if Japan and South Korea can maintain good economic cooperation with China, then even if the difficulties can be overcome, even if the export suffered some impact, it is not too serious.
But the sharp decline in important economic data in Japan and South Korea is highly abnormal, and the two countries have followed the United States and shut themselves out of the Chinese market, and have paid a heavy price.
3, the world economic order has quietly changed dramatically.
In the past few decades, the Chinese economy has been deeply integrated into the overall situation of the world economy, but the US government always wants to shift the industrial chain, "decouple and break the chain", de-risk, and build "high walls and small courtyarding" to exclude China from the international trading system.
Us calls for 'decoupling' from China
However, China is truly the world's factory and the world's consumer market, and the largest trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions in the world is China, which means that the US government's strategic delusion is impossible to realize from the beginning.
As a result of the development of things, it is true that since this year, a number of senior US officials and a delegation of senators have repeatedly stressed that they will not decouple from China, and the EU has also said that it will not seek to "decouple and break the chain."
Previously, Japan and South Korea followed the United States to suppress China, thinking that they could get a little oil, but the wind of the world changed too fast, when the United States sought cooperation with China, Japan and South Korea did not follow up in time, its economy was severely impacted, that is doomed.
Sino-american relations
After realizing its mistakes, the ROK government made some adjustments in time. Not only did it signal to the Chinese side that the China-Japan-ROK summit had turned a corner, but ROK Prime Minister Han Duck-soo also took the initiative to visit China to attend the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Under the repeated efforts of South Korea, on October 9, the United States finally agreed to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to provide equipment to Chinese factories.
Will Japan make the same choice as South Korea? People will wait and see.