Every once in a while, China and Japan get into a loud political dispute over a couple of islands in which leads to boycotts of each other's goods.
"We think that the impact has been worse than previous disputes over the same islands," writes SocGen's Kiyoko Katahira in a new note.
Earlier, Japan reported that its exports fell than 6.5 percent, which was worse than expected. This was largely due to the 12.3 percent drop in motor vehicle exports.
And nowhere were motor vehicle exports worse than in China.
From Katahira's note:
A key factor remains the negative impact on exports due to political tension between China and Japan since mid-September, which led Chinese consumers to avoid purchases of Japanese products. The Japanese car industry is one of the most affected areas. In October, more than half the decline in total exports to China can be explained by a large drop in motor vehicles exports (a drop of 54.1% from a year ago, or a contribution of -6.1pp to total export growth). The months before the island dispute became an issue, exports in this category showed increases (see chart).
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