A weak domestic econmoy has encouraged Japanese businesses to exapnd abroad.  Japanese investment in Southeast Asia doubled to $24 billion last year.

Jaan focused on the automotive and electronic sectors of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore during the 1980s and 90s.  japan moved its focus to China’s cheap laobor market at the end of the century.  But now relations between Japan and China have soured and Southeast Asis looks good again.

QE and newly created money under Shinzo Abe’s policy has left Japan with money to invest abroad.  But if this policy changes, that market will dry up.  Abe wnats Japanese firms to invest more at home.  A weak yen makes it possible to do this.  Canon is trying to shift production back to Japan, but Mitsubishi is building a new plant in Indonesia.  Impovements in corporate governancce have forced Japanese firms to look for profits they overlooked in the past.

Japan risks becoming a rentier economy, living off profits made in other countries and failing to getbroad-based wage growth at home.