Japanese carmakers are going to become irrelevant [1] unless there's a major change. But that's very unlikely due to: 1. Supply chains and key raw materials mostly controlled by China 2. Japan's demographic collapse 3. Japanese Gen Z fed up with an unwinnable rat race where they live to just pay rent and groceries It's very sad. [1] https://carnewschina.com/2025/01/13/byd-surpass-toyota-in-ja...
Compare these:
(germany) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=276&type=Probabilis...
(alternatively, Europe as a whole) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=908&type=Probabilis...
(Japan) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=392&type=Probabilis...
(China) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=156&type=Probabilis...
to this one
(US) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=840&type=Probabilis...
A key aggravating factor is most countries in the first group have stagnating productivity and the country in the second group has raising productivity on top. This creates a compound advantage for the country in the second group.
It seems likely to me that there is almost no degree of anti-national behavior the government of that country would need to exhibit or no amount of country-eroding policies that could forfeit this fundamental advantage. They'd need to get their country literally nuked or something similarly catastrophic.