As the ‘non-war theory’ between North and South Korea became stronger, an analysis was conducted that if a war with Taiwan broke out, South Korea’s GDP would decline by 23%.
Bloomberg Economics estimates that if China invades Taiwan and the United States intervenes, the world economy's GDP will plummet by 10% of the $10 trillion scale, and in the first year of the war, Taiwan's GDP will plummet by 40% and Korea's GDP will plummet by 23%. It was announced on the 9th that Japan's GDP decreased by 13.5%.
Bloomberg pointed out that the reason for the biggest impact in Korea and Japan other than Taiwan is the hit to production of smartphones and electric vehicles that use semiconductors. Bloomberg said that in the case of electronic products such as smartphones that use cutting-edge semiconductors, China It was revealed that if Taiwan was blockaded, production would decrease by 60%, and if China invaded Taiwan, production in Korea would be restricted and production would plummet by 85%.
In electric vehicles and home appliances, which use lagging-edge memory semiconductors, the damage caused by the Taiwan war was estimated to be a 35% decrease in production during the blockade phase and a 62% sharp decrease during the invasion of Taiwan.
Bloomberg's scenario for the pre-war blockade phase was compared to war with a 5% decline in world economic GDP, a 12.2% decline in Taiwan's GDP, an 8.9% decline in China, and a 2.2% decline in the United States.
North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un, accompanied by Vice Minister Kim Yo-jong, gave on-site guidance to military factories and said, “The people of the Republic of Korea are our main enemies,” and added, “We will never unilaterally carry out a great change by overwhelming force on the Korean Peninsula, but we intend to avoid war.” Also, there is absolutely nothing,” the Rodong Sinmun reported on the 10th.
Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik said at a press conference at the ROK-US defense ministers' meeting on December 13 last year, "If North Korea provokes, the one that disappears will be the Kim Jong-un regime, and what will be achieved will be unification under the liberal democratic basic order led by the Republic of Korea." .
Immediately after the inauguration ceremony on October 7, Minister Shin said, “With the idea that ‘punishment is deterrence, and deterrence is peace,’ if the enemy provokes, first, punish immediately. Second, punish strongly. Third, punish them until the end,” he instructed.
President Yoon Seok-yeol told the Associated Press before his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 17 last year, "South Korea and the United States reaffirmed that they will respond quickly, overwhelmingly, and resolutely to any nuclear attack by North Korea and put an end to the regime."
Samsung Electronics' sales and operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year were KRW 67 trillion and KRW 2.8 trillion, down 4.91% and 35.03%, respectively, compared to the same period last year, but securities companies and the government had previously predicted an operating profit of over KRW 3.5 trillion, citing a rebound in the semiconductor economy. Encouraged stock purchases.
In the semiconductor recession, Samsung Electronics recorded sales of 258.16 trillion won and operating profit of 6.54 trillion won last year, down 14.58% and 84.92% from the previous year, respectively.
Joe Quattrocchi, an analyst at Wells Fargo, told Reuters on the 4th that the recovery of semiconductor equipment sellers will slow in 2024.
Research company Canalys predicted that the growth rate of the global electric vehicle market will slow to 27.1% this year.
“Strong fundamentals will ensure that automakers are better positioned to achieve further growth in 2025, when electric vehicle growth is expected to accelerate,” Canalys said. “Chinese automakers will soon reap the fruits of global investments in local manufacturing.” “Because we will reap, it will become a force that cannot be ignored,” he told Reuters on the 8th.