Japan: can the return of savings raise borrowing costs elsewhere?
Japanese life insurers are reducing foreign debt investments. Currency hedges, liabilities and reinvestment choices determine the impact on global borrowing costs.
// Asia in the global system
l0g · English editionAsia: capital, currencies and supply chains.
Follow the money, the institutions and the industrial links connecting Asian economies to the world.
Latest Asia analysis
English RSSTSMC follows chip demand all the way to the power grid
Data center power schedules are entering TSMC’s industrial decisions. An investigation into contracts, forecasts and the way infrastructure risk can reach semiconductor factories.
The Gulf’s broken security bargain and the global cost of Trump’s war
From Trump’s Qatar pledge to the Doha message: an investigation into responsibility, industrial damage and the worldwide costs of the Iran war.
SK hynix: Dalian and the financing of a US factory
SK hynix’s US factory discussions link Dalian, export licences and a possible Solidigm listing. We examine the accounts, rules and unresolved financing.
MSCI and Indonesia: the cost of opaque ownership
MSCI’s Indonesia consultation connects ownership transparency, fund mandates and index eligibility. An analysis of potential selling and reform deadlines.
// The Asian dollar loop
Asian savings and dollar risk.
A reading path through the assets, the institutions that hold them and the cash needed to keep the system running.
Start with the assetsMap the assets
Start with the securities held in the US and the different risks inside a dollar portfolio.
InteractiveExplore portfolio shocksIdentify the holders
Read the assets alongside the liabilities, policyholders and institutions behind them.
Follow the hedge
Trace short currency contracts against long assets, through renewals, dealers and collateral.
InteractiveExplore hedge renewalsTest the cash constraint
Combine bond losses, exchange-rate moves and payments due in an explicit hypothetical scenario.
InteractiveRun the liquidity stress testTrack the next buyer
Distinguish selling existing holdings from reducing reinvestment and new purchases.
InteractiveExplore a purchase slowdown
// Go deeper
Regional reading paths
Japan, the yen and the price of global funding
Follow the BoJ, Japanese government bonds and the yen carry trade from Tokyo into Treasuries, currencies and leveraged portfolios.
JGB yields → yen funding → repatriation → global asset prices
Analysis
Yen: 163,412 net short contracts before the shockFiscal dominance made real: Japan subordinates its central bank to its budgetThe yen carry trade: the fuse is now in Japanese bondsDollar-yen: the risk is not only the level, it is the unwindJapan’s zero-rate exit is landing on life insurers’ balance sheetsSouth Korea, from chip concentration to housing credit
Read the KOSPI, leveraged market structures and jeonse deposits as connected balance-sheet risks rather than isolated Korean stories.
chip cycle → index concentration → collateral → households
China, where domestic stress meets cross-border power
Separate the slow property adjustment from the expansion of RMB settlement, commodity bargaining power and lower-cost AI models.
property and credit → trade settlement → commodities → global margins
Analysis
The renminbi is weaving a monetary zone across AsiaChinese real estate: anatomy of a risk that settles inIntelligence on the cheap: China's open-source AI strategy against the capex bubbleChina: behind the fall in crude imports, a new market powerReference guides
How to Read TIC Data: who really finances U.S. debtAsian equities, index rules and portfolio constraints
Read Indonesia’s ownership disclosures alongside South Korea’s leveraged ETFs, following how index rules and fund mandates translate into portfolio adjustments.
ownership and index rules → portfolio targets → rebalancing → market liquidity