On February 3, 2022, the Cabinet Office of Japan released the "World Economic Trends" report, which analyzed the trade structure between major countries and China. The results show that Japan relies on more types of goods imported from China than the United States and Germany. If this trade structure is maintained, Japan will be at risk if the supply chain breaks.

The report investigates the number of commodity types with relatively concentrated sources of imports from Japan, the United States and Germany. In 2019, China's share of imports from the three countries was 23.3%, 18.1% and 8.5%, respectively.

The report pointed out that among about 5,000 imported categories, if China accounts for more than 50% of the categories, there are 1,133 in Japan, 590 in the United States and 250 in Germany.

In addition to China, the United States also relies on Canada and Mexico to export a wide range of goods to it. Germany, on the other hand, has shown a tendency to diversify its import demand to European countries.

According to the report, in addition to mobile phones and notebook computers, Japan's products that rely on China's supply include light-emitting diode (LED)-related products, game consoles, toys and other categories. Among them, China accounted for 85.7% of Japan's mobile phone imports in 2019, a significant increase from 69.1% 10 years ago. In 2019, China accounted for 98.8% of Japan's imports of laptops and tablets. Editor/He Yuting