In 1991, the Japanese stock market and the property market collapsed one after another, although the Japanese government then moved around, frequently used methods, and invested a lot of money to stop this decline.
In the end, Japan's bubble economy burst, and after that, they entered the lost thirty years.
Those developers and speculators who lost money, and some who insisted on not buying, did they successfully avoid this economic catastrophe? How is their life now?
Blue dragon
Before talking about the collapse of house prices in Japan in the 90s, let's review how Japan reached its peak step by step after the end of World War II.
Japanese streets in the 60s
After the end of World War II, Japan was depressed, but no one expected that they would quietly rise in just a dozen years.
It became the world's second largest economy after the United States, and seriously threatened the status of the United States.
As a defeated country, Japan has to accept sanctions on the one hand, and they have lost their sovereignty internationally, and only the United States is following the lead, how did such a small island country complete its transformation?
In fact, before the war, Japan's national strength had reached a very high height.
Japan is a studious nation, since the Meiji Restoration, they have built schools to educate bourgeois and militaristic ideas on campuses, and at the same time, they have sent a large number of students to study in Britain, France and the United States.
Even after the defeat of the war, many Japanese students remained overseas, and these people became the new force for the future development of Japanese industry.
Strategically, Japan has chosen to make technological breakthroughs in light of its own circumstances.
In addition, in order to restrain the Soviet Union and China, the early economic assistance of the Americans to Japan was also an important factor in the smooth development of Japan; During the Korean War and the Vietnam War, much of the U.S. military materiel was produced in Japan.
During those more than a decade, the United States had to buy billions and tens of billions of dollars in military materials from Japan every year, and Japan at this time could be said to be a stable supplier of arms resources to the United States.
Thanks to the super umbrella of the United States, Japan can invest in economic construction without hesitation.
The invisible hand
In 1960, the Ikeda cabinet introduced the National Income Doubling Plan, which aimed to double the national income over a period of 10 years.
Since then, they have blossomed in the fields of scientific and technological research and development, industrial manufacturing, mining, fishery, and service industries, and it took less than 7 years to achieve this goal ahead of schedule.
In 1968, Japan became the world's second largest economy, and it has to be said that the speed of their development is truly breathtaking.
In 1973, Japan's national income doubled again, and by this time, they had become the global leader in various industries such as automobiles, home appliances, and pharmaceuticals.
The reason why Japan has been able to develop its economy so quickly has to do with the global strategy of the Americans.
In order to restrain the former Soviet Union, the United States proposed the first island chain and deployed a large number of military forces in Japan and South Korea.
Before and after World War II, a large number of international students sent to Europe and the United States and other countries returned to China at this time, so that they can gradually come to the forefront of the industry in terms of high-end talents and technology.
At that time, the world's 3rd to 5th countries in terms of GDP combined to compete with Japan, and Japan's capital Tokyo has developed into the world's most famous super city in the past ten years.
Their GDP is even more than twice that of New York, the rooms in Tokyo, and even ten times that of Shanghai.
Japan's per capita income has risen sharply due to a rising economy, the Japanese government has introduced a series of policies to stimulate consumption, and the Japanese people have begun to show the world their puffed wallets.
The world's major luxury brands began to enter Japan, and Japanese people like to travel all over the world.
They have become the most popular tourists in major tourist attractions, and many hotels and commercial centers in national scenic spots require waiters to learn some commonly used Japanese.
However, the influence of militarism in all fields of Japan is deeply rooted, and after its rise in a short period of time, Japan does not understand what it means to be taoguang and raise obscurity, and they seem to forget that their fate is still in the hands of the Americans.
Deep-pocketed Japanese companies began to extend their tentacles to the United States, buying up in various U.S. cities and acquiring possession of U.S. assets through investments.
For them, as long as it can be bought with money, it is not a problem. Mitsubishi even bought the Rockefeller Center in the United States for less than a billion dollars.
Rockefeller Center
In the industrial field, taking advantage of the deep quagmire of the United States in the Gulf region, Japan's automobile and other industries have taken the opportunity to rise, surpassing the United States and becoming the world's highest car sales country.
sanction
In the 30 years since the end of World War II, the United States has ushered in a prosperous era, the first stage, they began with infrastructure upgrades, built highways across the country, and vigorously developed the logistics industry.
With the improvement of transportation capacity, it has driven the development of their domestic manufacturing industry.
At the same time, in the unique environment of the development of the US military industry, Boeing, Ford, General Electric and other enterprises in the United States have developed and expanded, in order to meet the growing demand for resources, the United States has set its sights on the Middle East, South America and other regions.
However, with the outbreak of the oil crisis in the 70s, many resources in the United States were cut off.
To this end, the United States can only seek to adjust the industrial structure to make economic development more sustainable.
However, due to the extremely high inflation rate in the country, the driving force of enterprises is insufficient, and the difficulty of reform can be imagined.
In this case, the United States tried to save itself by adjusting its external economic system around the world, and Japan bore the brunt.
Japan developed rapidly in the 50s and 60s, thanks to their timely transformation of the industrial structure, focusing on technology and knowledge-intensive industries, which was the same as the American line at that time, and Americans did not expect that Japanese products would be so popular at home.
Japanese color TV
In 1966, Nissan color TV had just entered the US market, and in only 4 years, the market share reached an astonishing 33%, and after the outbreak of the oil crisis, Nissan sold more than 2 million vehicles a year in the United States.
Japanese car
Although Japan has always been dependent on the United States militarily and diplomatically, the Americans have given them great freedom in the economic sphere.
Unexpectedly, Japan only took about ten years to bring a strong threat to the United States in the home appliances, semiconductors, mobile devices, automobiles and other industries, and the trade surplus between the two countries continued to expand.
It's not too late. In the face of declining international influence, the United States has embarked on protectionism. Under the strong military deterrence of the US military, Japan had to repeatedly back down.
In the 80s, the US fiscal deficit was rising, and in order to curb the rate of dollar appreciation, the Americans forced Japan to appreciate the yen by 25%, but this only temporarily saved the United States from danger. But this was not enough, they united with Great Britain, France, Germany and other European countries and imposed a series of sanctions on Japan.
In response to the constraints of the United States, Japan introduced a policy of financial liberalization, and the contradictions between the two countries officially exploded.
In order to deal with Japan, the United States and Britain and France jointly withdrew from the Plaza Accord.
The introduction of the Plaza Accord led to the yen's appreciation reaching a terrifying rate of 60% that year.
Although the Japanese government adjusted monetary policy many times, the effect was not satisfactory, and by 1990, the bubble economy that had tormented Japan for many years was burst, a blow that the Japanese have been unable to breathe until now.
Thirty years lost
In the 70s and 80s, many Japanese were accustomed to a luxurious life, they did not have to work, in order to maintain the high cost of living, they invested most of their money in the real estate industry, even took out loans to buy houses, earned income by collecting rent, and spent more than half of the year traveling abroad.
The collapse of housing prices has completely deprived these people of their livelihood, and thousands of Japanese have been unable to face huge debts and have chosen suicide.
During those years, Japan's divorce rate was ridiculously high, and many women entered the AV industry to earn a living, because at this time, Japan simply could not afford to provide enough jobs for them.
Contrary to these house speculators, Japanese people who did not choose to buy a house before this have been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Japanese housing prices, which were once speculated to 1.4 billion yen, plummeted to 6 million yen, a drop of 100 times.
Some people take all their savings and buy a house of their dreams at a very low price. Of course, everything has its pros and cons.
A large number of Japanese who are facing huge financial pressures have returned to work, which has brought Japan's unemployment rate to an all-time high, countless unemployed vagrants have lived on the streets, and Japan, which was once invincible, has fallen into a long-term downturn.
A lesson from the past, a master from the back
Looking back at this history, the trade war between Japan and the United States actually has many lessons for the mainland.
Now the United States regards China as the biggest opponent and puts pressure on us through various means, especially now that the United States is in decline, similar to Japan, China is also in a critical period of industrial transformation and upgrading, we must not only deal with the suppression of the United States, but also pay attention to domestic economic structural problems.
For example, housing prices are inflated, there are too many non-performing assets, enterprises are too dependent on investment, and the ability of independent scientific and technological innovation is insufficient.
But in essence, the situation of China and Japan is very different, Japan and the United States are called alliances, but in fact Japan is dependent on the United States.
Although China and the United States are full of contradictions, as long as we balance exports and domestic demand, deepen supply-side reform, increase investment in scientific research, and solve the neck problem, we are confident of winning this war.