How much does Japan need Chinese imports? And which appliance trade surprisingly sizzles?

Japan has been relying more on China’s supply chain than the US’, according to a recent trade breakdown by Tokyo that reflects how Japan has not sought to decouple from China, but rather “insulate” itself in certain areas.

Among imported products that Japan relies heavily on, more than two-thirds came from China in 2022 while only an eighth came from the United States, according to a newly released white paper from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The detailed findings, unveiled on Tuesday, assessed trade data on around 4,300 items imported that year by Japan, the US, Germany and the Group of 7 overall.

Japan depends far more heavily on single countries – often China – for imports of many more types of consumer and industrial products than do Tokyo’s Group of Seven peers, according to the white paper.

The report applied the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a measure of market concentration in which a reading above 50 for a given product means that one specific country accounts for more than half of its imports.

Overall, Japan relied heavily on imports for nearly 47 per cent of its 4,300 products surveyed. In particular, Japan imported more than half from China in 1,406 specific items, representing almost 70 per cent of 2,015 items that Japan sourced heavily from overseas in 2022.

In contrast, the US accounted for only 12.5 per cent of the imports on which Japan strongly relied.

And today, that type of trade scenario still persists, explained Stephen Nagy, director of policy studies for the Yokosuka Council of Asia-Pacific Studies in Tokyo.