I can probably only give you info on investment and financial integration:
In a nut shell, Japan's economy is definitley going to get worse before better. During the 1980s, Japan was running high, but excess capacity combined with high levels of speculation saw a financial crash, government debt was at 140% in a bid to save the banks, and interest rates soared from 3.8 to 8.2% in a bid to reduce capital outflow, what resulted was the destruction of domestic demand. What really carried the japanese economy up to now was high levels of competitive exports and investment returns. Most went to finance the US current account deficit, what resulted was a 300+ billion dollar stake in the US economy, the results gained from this was an average current account surplus of 2-3% a year from this big stake. The tacit agreement was Japan would reinvest these earnings into US to stop a collapse of the $A, in reeturn to high market access for Japan (low protection). So Japan has an advantage, if US pisses Jap off, its investors would withdraw from the US, which the collapse of the US currency and a total collapse in world financial follows since everything is denominated with the US dollar. In the mean time, US is digging their own grave with consumption lead growth, not production, a increasing threats of protectionism against the Jap economy which may prompt withdraw of Jap investment. If the Japanese domestic economy recover from this deep seated malaise it is in, it may also trigger a collapse in US economy as investment funds would move from US back to Japan.
Anyways I am at work. I will talk about Japanese/ SE Asia relationship and the fly "geese paradigm" it headed.
