The big outcome of these elections is unlikely to be a shooting war with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute. But we will see a deadly serious economic rivalry: under Prime Minister Abe, Japan is pledged to print money to stimulate the economy. Clearly the new government wants to bring the yen down to make Japanese manufacturing more competitive against China, whose currency tends to float with the dollar. This move is likely to have repercussions around the world, driving other major world economies (like the U.S. and Brazil) to push their own currencies down and probably forcing China to follow suit.
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