East Asia Econ

East Asia Today

Some charts showing how Korea is structurally converging with Japan and Taiwan. One area of convergence is the current account surplus, which across the region is large and growing, now up to 6% of GDP in Japan. Other data today in Japan reiterate the improvement in cyclical momentum in late 2025.

Paul Cavey

Jan 13, 2026 • 2 min read

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East Asia Today

A longer note summarising cycle and structure and arguing that risk-reward is moving in favour of Asian currencies. Against that framework, today's export data for the first 10 days of January in Korea were soft. But Taiwan wage data for November tick the right boxes.

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Region – cycles, structures and currencies

Using an update of my regional chartpack to think about exchange rates. Specifically, I think the cycle and structure dynamics are moving risk-reward in favour of Asian currencies. I'd argue that is true if the global picture is unchanged, but it could also be true if conditions in the US falter.

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Last week, next week

Themes: capital flows v CNY appreciation in China; fiscal fear v real policy rate in Japan; foreign v domestic equity strength in Korea; policy status quo v export surge in Taiwan.