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By JTTC

The world continues to grapple with COVID-19. There has been a staggering loss of life with roughly 1.4 million deaths, likely even more. On top of this, the economic toll was similarly drastic with countries across the world experiencing increased unemployment, risk of recession and a general decline in GDP. Since the end of summer, many nations experienced a dip in both COVID cases as well as an increase in economic activity. Some of the nations of the world experienced this differently than others. For nations in East Asia, this represented itself not only in far fewer COVID cases but also significantly increased economic activity as well. In Japan, economic activity had a drastic increase. In large part, this was a result of the way the nation reacted to the pandemic. Many of these factors are a result of circumstances common across most of East Asia. However, a significant factor for Japan has been its approach to stimulating economic activity in conjunction with virus minimizing factors common throughout East Asia. Despite the promising situation, these gains remain precarious at best. On top of that, the damage caused by the pandemic has been so extensive that it would require consistent significant gains to make a net gain for the year. A recent global surge in COVID cases threatens both human lives as well as the recent economic recovery. Like many nations, Japan has begun to recover but careful measures both by the government and its people are required to sustain this recovery.

Virtually every nation in the world has been affected by COVID. However, not every nation has been affected by it equally. This is not because the virus makes a conscious choice to infect the residents of one nation over the other. The starkest evidence of this was how the virus has affected nations in East Asia versus nations in the West. Of the nations who rank in the top 20 by both fatalities and total cases, 0 of them are located in East Asia. Superficially this seems especially surprising given how densely populated and, in some cases, how undeveloped those nations can be. In the case of Japan, there is also the extra factor that a significant section of their population is elderly, with Japan having the world’s oldest population. Despite these issues, Japan and the other nations of East Asia have had far fewer COVID cases and deaths than most every Western nation. This does not mean that these nations have not made their share of blunders. In Japan, there has been relatively minimal access to testing and the lack of access created a bottleneck that left potentially asymptomatic people unaccounted for. However, a combination of socio-cultural norms, experienced policy-oriented leadership, specialized medical techniques, and a host of other factors have assisted in mitigating the lethality of the pandemic. This has allowed these nations to focus more resources on both the health side of the pandemic but the economic side as well. For Japan, this has also allowed their economy to whether the pandemic better than many nations as well as allowing it to rebound strongly.

One of the keyways to measure the economy of a nation is through GDP. The truncated version is that GDP is the total monetary value of all finished goods as well as services that a nation produces in a set period of time, typically quarterly. Japan’s Gross Domestic Product increased by 21.4% in the third quarter. This was the largest expansion of Japan’s economy in roughly half a century. The expansion was largely boosted as a result of stimulus subsidies and expansive trade. One of the most successful tools has been the use of something called the Go To Travel campaign. As part of this campaign, individuals can receive up to 50% off of transportation, hotels, restaurants and a variety of other economic-related activity so long as it takes place within Japan. While this certainly has the danger of expanding the spread of the infection, the idea appears to be that the variety of other factors that have mitigated the lethality of the virus will offset the potential harm from the campaign. While the economic rebound is promising, there are reasons to be concerned. Foremost among them, is the increasing rates of infection heading into the winter. On top of this, the world is experiencing another surge of COVID cases which threatens the export-heavy Japanese economy. While a 21% increase is certainly promising, this is only about half of the growth that was lost at the beginning of the year. Like many nations, Japan must approach this second surge carefully or risk losing the gains they have recently made.

As is the case with many nations, Japan continues to grapple with the current COVID pandemic. While not perfect, Japan has expanded its economy in the last quarter as well as mitigating the loss of life caused by COVID. A significant reason that virus mitigation efforts have been so successful is a result of aspects common throughout the region of East Asia. The list of these factors is expansive but despite dense populations, economic or political underdevelopment, and wildly varying political leadership these nations have managed to combat COVID in a far more successful manner than their Western counterparts. Furthermore, nations like Japan have used these factors to help stimulate economic growth. Unfortunately, the damage from the pandemic has been so extensive that it will require constant care to repair the damage in the long run. With the world experiencing another wave of cases this fragile recovery remains in jeopardy. This is not only true of Japan but the other nations of the world as well.

JTTC is a political writer for La Tonique.