Chapter 863 - A Shocking Change!
Chapter 863: A Shocking Change!
Very soon, after Su Yang’s second wave of suppressing yen, the American bank officially started to lower interest rates through the cabinet.
Under such circumstances, all the reserves in the world unanimously started avoiding yen. Japan continued to buy, their price kept rising, and it slowly surpassed the 75 yen mark.
It was just like the countless times when the interest rate of USD was lowered, and the method used by capitalists to avoid danger was repeated without any differences to be seen. After all, the country’s policies would not be changed easily, and there would not be any problems in the short term.
However, no one noticed that in the three major financial markets, some financial accounts were still selling yen.
However, the scale of this sale gradually decreased from 10 billion yuan to a few hundred million yuan through “small scaled” transactions. It was becoming less and less noticeable, and it almost did not affect the exchange rate…
Time passed quickly, and soon, another half a month had passed. Just when everyone thought that the dust had settled, many posts and reports against the yen appreciation appeared on the Japanese internet.
These posts and reports were written by professionals. They pointed out that there was a huge risk hidden in yen, and it was not a good thing for Japan.
This was because… Yen’s appreciation will have a huge negative impact on import and export trade. In fact, at that moment… Japan’s products were unable to be sold internationally because of their prices being too high…
Initially, this voice was only spreaded on the internet. Soon, various major media outlets and newspapers in Japan began to forward or write similar articles.
Some prominent economists have also begun to explain in newspapers or media whether rising exchange rates were good or bad for the country.
Overall, there were both gains and losses for such phenomenons, but there were more gains than losses.
For its gains, the lives of their own countrymen would not only have improved due to the invisible appreciation of their assets, they could even buy foreign products at lower prices as well.
After all, people who lived within Japan could only use their local currency. Imported goods that originally cost one USD used to cost 80 yen. However, at that moment, it only cost 75 yen.
Life was much easier, of course.
However, the downside was that the entire country’s import and export trade would be greatly affected. Products of the same price, because of the increase in exchange rate, would end up being sold at a much higher price once they got exported.
For example, if an item that originally cost 80 yuan was sold to America, it would only cost one USD plus profits in the past, but it now cost 1.07 USD plus profits instead.
Unknowingly, the price would end up increasing.
It might not be a big deal that a product’s price increased by 0.07 USD, but what if it were millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of items altogether?
The number involved would be shocking.
Suppliers across countries will soon consider abandoning their purchases of Japanese exports because of pricing issues.
Japan’s technological products, cars, chemical products, and other industries, no matter what they were, as long as they were exported to various countries, they would end up reducing their competitiveness without knowing.
Moreover, if their prices were not increased, their profits would be reduced. However, if their prices remain the same, corporate profits for Japanese imports and exports will be much lower.
Not only that, because international trade was mostly calculated using USD, and that amount of USD would have to be converted back to yen, the money earned would actually decrease again since yen was appreciating.
With two contractions, all Japanese enterprises involving imports and exports will struggle.
Many economists speculated that if this continued, Japanese companies would soon lose global influence and sales.
Aside from having an impact on companies involved in imports and exports…
Because foreign products were cheaper in Japan. In terms of price, some domestic products might not be able to compete with imports. Hence, Japanese citizens would be more inclined to purchase foreign products.
Over time, small and medium-size enterprises will be squeezed out of the competition, and Japan would likely face the withering of manufacturing, the collapse of factories, and the removal of workers.
Actually, all the big companies had already been aware of this when the value of yen rose.
But because they had not experienced the export pressure brought about by the yen appreciation for many years, and all import and export trade had to be maintained in advance of foreign-currency currencies (after confirming the order, foreign-currency futures would be sold on the market in advance, and then they would be liquidated after receiving the money, so that the exchange rate of this transaction would not affect the final profit), they were not too alert about this phenomenon.
However, with the media and the warning from the economists, they finally discovered the problem and started their research.
Soon, they came to the conclusion that the impact on short-term transactions was not big, because the partners had already been in conflict with exchange-rate movements. However, the impact it would have mid to long term was huge.
Therefore, one month ago, everyone was happy that the country had protected the exchange rate, but one month later, everything changed!
The sudden drop in America’s interest rates, which led to the country keeping its exchange rate, turned out to be the worst move?
‘It’s actually causing a huge problem with the import and export industry!?
‘Can the situation even turn around like this?’
Everyone was stunned.
Just when Japan was in an uproar over foreign exchange issues, there was suddenly a commotion in Japan that caused the cabinet to disband.
They believed that the reason for the current situation was due to the cabinet messing around!
Furthermore, soon, under someone’s influence, that voice grew louder.
There was something mysterious about Japan… Even though the president of the country would be re-elected once every three years, most presidents would not even be able to last for a year.
Because as long as the country is in trouble, the rest of the political parties can impeach the country’s president and cabinet to resign.
Therefore, the current Japanese cabinet members were all panicking.
They did not expect the matter to have such a huge impact!
Besides…They were not the ones who caused their yen to appreciate. They did the most normal thing and kept their yen’s exchange rate intact. It was foreign tourism and capital that believed that yen had the potential to resist depreciation and Japan was determined to keep the exchange rate. They thought it had nothing to do with them, but they did not say that to the public.
Furthermore, who would have expected that America would suddenly reduce QE and quantitative easing?
In order to preserve their value, capital flooded into Japan with hot money, increasing the exchange rate of yen.
‘Everything that’s happening here has got nothing to do with us at all!’
Just as the cabinet was crying out for justice, the other political parties had appeared and were starting to question the situation.
The other political parties had dug up the matter of the cabinet spending billions of USD to protect yen’s exchange rate a month ago. They believed that with the trade deficit about to be formed and the foreign exchange dwindling, such actions were completely disregarding the country’s interests!
They requested a big shot in the cabinet to pay for their yen’s appreciation and foot the bill for the billions of yuan involved!
The series of questions pushed the matter to the climax.
And the other political parties have finally revealed their true colors… They demanded that the country’s president resign, the cabinet dissolved, and the elections re-opened.
In just a few short days, the whole of Japan was suddenly in turmoil and on the verge of collapse. It was no longer as glorious as it was a month ago.
…
Meanwhile, still in that familiar courtyard and under that familiar cherry blossom tree…
Yagawa Masaru was not in the mood to drink any tea at that moment. He stood under the cherry blossom tree and kept making calls, with his expression as serious as it could be.
This series of reversals was completely out of his expectations. As one of the sponsors of the cabinet, he was also panicking.
Actually, the matter regarding the foreign exchange wasn’t that important, but with the public’s opinion blowing up, that was the real problem!
‘Someone must be adding fuel to the fire!’
At that thought, Su Yang’s figure appeared before his eyes.
“Are you the one involved in all this, Su-kun?”
Yagawa Masaru immediately dismissed this thought. He felt that it was not Su Yang because the plan was too scary. The mastermind was literally interfering with the re-election of a world-class superpower!
‘Su Yang is a foreigner after all, so how much benefit would actually be involved for him to do this? Is he crazy?
‘Who could it be then?’
Soon, messages came in one after another. Not long after, Yagawa Masaru locked onto his target. ‘All of this seems to be the work of the former president of the country, Nakai Yuuki, who pushed for easy monetary policy three years ago.’
Nakai Yuuki was one of the country’s presidents with the highest support rate in Japan’s history. He came from a family of big shots, and his family was the country’s president for three generations. He had plenty of connections and resources in the world of big shots.
Three years ago, when he became the president of the country for the first time, he wanted to push for easy monetary policy, expand imports and exports, and boost the economy. However, he was soon impeached and resigned.
Hence, Yagawa Masaru did not expect that this time, he would seize the opportunity to launch an attack!
However, even though he had found the person, Yagawa Masaru realized that he could not deal with him.
Because of middle-class residency, family background, connections, and support rate, and now that he had found evidence against the cabinet, Yagawa Masaru could not retaliate.
Instead, he could only let the president of the country think of a way.
At that moment, Yagawa Masaru felt like he had aged a lot…
This was because he knew that even the current president of the country would not be able to solve this problem. ‘At this point, there’s no way to turn the situation around…’
…
Indeed.
Two days later, after two rounds of internal voting, Nakai Yuuki successfully defeated his competitor, Ishimura Shigeru. He was elected as the 25th president of the Liberal Republic and became the first former president to be re-elected.
Three days later, the current president of the state, Ono Haruna, publicly apologized for his failure at Kanto TV.
Half a month later, the Liberal Democrats, led by Nakai Yuuki, in charge of the cabinet, rejected the speech of the president of the country, Ono Haruna, and personally joined forces with the Liberal Democrats, the Public Security Faction, and seven others to force him to resign and dissolve the cabinet as soon as possible.
A month later, Nakai Yuuki reached an agreement with the then-president of the country, Ono Haruna. Through some of the policies of the current president of the country, Ono Haruna, the current president surrendered.
That night.
The current president of the state, Ono Haruna, has announced the dissolution of the House and the re-election of the cabinet…
This also declared the failure of Japan’s management.
At this time, the international funds finally realized that something was wrong.
After all, unlike Ono Haruna, Nakai Yuuki was a radical. He pursued a strategy to improve the economy at all costs.
He was impeached and resigned during his last term because his policies were too radical.
Once he takes office, Japan is likely not to pursue its current economic strategy and will likely choose to sacrifice the exchange rate to stimulate the economy.
If this was the case, then yen… Was going to collapse!
Under this kind of risk alert, even though Nakai Yuuki had yet to become the president of the country, international funds with a keen sense of smell started to escape. Under such circumstances, the yen also encountered a turning point and started to depreciate bit by bit.
At this moment, Wei Lin had already converted the 160 billion yen in his hand into USD and gold under Su Yang’s instructions. He was waiting for an opportunity to ambush them.
In the previous month, other than buying the shares of the four automobile companies with his own money, Su Yang did not act rashly. All his arrangements had been completed, and there was no need for him to interfere anymore. As long as he continued to push forward, there would be a harvest soon.
In the past month, three of the four automobile companies had gone from initial agreements to negotiations. They were ready to cooperate.
Even the local Japanese automobile companies realized the situation after multiple failures. Finally, they got someone to contact Su Yang and started to negotiate with him.
Su Yang used this reason to delay the signing of the contract with the other three companies.
According to him, he came to Japan because he wanted to help Japan’s automobile companies develop better. Previously, he had been contacted by four companies. Now that he had abandoned one company and joined the other three, he would appear petty.
Therefore, he planned to sign an agreement with Nissan after the negotiation and hold a press conference to create a sensation.
Even though Su Yang was the second party, he still had the core technology. Therefore, the few automobile companies could not refute him and could only accept it.
It was not that they did not suspect that Su Yang was intentionally stalling for time. However, after some careful research, they felt that there was no benefit in stalling for time.
Therefore, they were more inclined to believe that Su Yang was giving the two domestic automobile companies some time to make the first move, or that Nissan had better conditions and the other three automobile companies could not sign the contract first.
Anyway, it was just some minor details. After the executives of the three automobile companies learned about it, they did not mind.
However, they did not know that Su Yang did not sign the contract because he did not have any benefits. However, his motive was not to break the contract, which meant that he would not harm his own interests…
…
Time flew, and soon, another 10 days had passed. The Japan election had officially begun, and Nakai Yuuki had officially made an announcement that he would participate in the election as the president of the country.
And his competitors were the current president of Japan’s state, and the democratic representative, Ono Haruno.
In his campaign debate, he not only publicly criticized a series of conservative policies in the previous year, but also formally articulated his economic policies for the next few years: he would follow America and pursue loose monetary policy. He would reduce Japan’s interest rate directly to zero, unleashing all of its liquidity and stimulating the economy.
Moreover, he will reduce the exchange rate, expand imports and exports, restore competitiveness internationally for Japanese companies, and implement fiscal stimulus to push Japan’s economy toward recovery.
This speech had boosted the morale of the entire Japan and won him a lot of support.
But… It also spooked international capital.
‘We were right! We were right after all! This guy is indeed planning to lower the interest rate and loosen the currency so that yen would depreciate. This means that yen is going to fall!’
All of a sudden, international funds fled Japan, and the yen fell. Even though yen was a world-class currency that was safe to hold onto, it could not stop so much money from escaping, causing it to fall all the way from 78 to 85.
In fact, it was still falling…