I disagree. Many of the jobs that left Japan and the United States in the 80's and 90's are not coming back - they've already been replaced by robots. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Cashiers, accountants and drivers are all being replaced by robots and automated systems. These jobs are going away and aren't going to be replaced by a comparable entry-level job. This automation is picking up pace now and will only continue.
Its difficult because japan is not a resource region country. They don't want to reshore production because its costly to source all of the materials they need.
China is not a resource region county for a lot of things it needs produce products either. That is why they import raw materials from places like Africa and are more than happy to help pave roads to make it easier to get things out.
Sorry meant to say resource rich. Its hard to overstate how few resources japan has at its disposal. This caused their aggression during WWII. China has some resources just far fewer than their population plus they are attempting to export their way to affluence which means they are also producing the world's goods, not just goods for the population of china. China is definitely not resource rich but better off than japan in that way.
While this is true, it's become extremely cheap to move raw materials around these days. Shipping ore from Australia to China was at something like $8 a ton (I assume changed due to recent crisis).
I'd expect with Japan internal shipping costs may be a greater problem. They intentionally distributed their industries around the country.
Oh I agree with the view that automation will eventually cause mass unemployment, and is already having an impact. All I'm saying is that at the time that production for these things moved overseas (decades ago), this did not suddenly increase the unemployment rate for the country that lost the jobs. New jobs end up being created.
