Wall Street Journal: Solving Japan's Economic Puzzle

Apparently Japan's famous dependence on exports is 16% of GDP, but to put that in comparison the UK is at 15.5%. The difference is that growth is only ever in exports, the domestic economy is stagnant, where the export "sensitivity" comes from. Another interesting point is that although Japan used to export finished goods, now they are intermediate producers to China who export the finished product. Thus, they are facing a run-down of their intermediate own stock -plus- a linked rundown of secondary finished stock. But when this destocking finished, both China restocking and Japan restocking will occur, so destocking/stocking is magnified in effect. Some other bits and bobs too.