That doesn’t sound much to get excited about, until you consider how well the Chinese and Japanese economies fit together.

Think of it this way: With China’s boundless supply of low-cost labor and Japan’s superb education system – and an ability to work together that’s clearly founded on considerable commonality of thinking – these two countries, as a pair, will be world-beaters.

In fact, they’ll be world leaders.

The Past has Passed

The summit – while modest – marked an important policy change from the mutual hostility during the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, whose tilt to the United States and suspicion of Chinese motivations was symptomized by his love of Elvis Presley and visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, controversial because it includes convicted World War II criminals. Nevertheless, while Japan and China have many historical reasons to hate one another, so did France and Germany after World War II, and those countries have now been partners for more than 50 years in the European Union. Thus, a close economic partnership between Japan and China is by no means unthinkable.

Economically, China and Japan have much to offer each other. Both have shortages of raw materials and strong manufacturing sectors. However, the relative shortage of labor in Japan’s aging society, its superb education system and the surplus of labor in China all combine to make them natural partners. Already, Japan is China’s second-largest trading partner, taking 10% of its exports and supplying 15% of its imports. Conversely, China in 2007 surpassed the United States as Japan’s largest trading partner, taking 14% of its exports and supplying 21% of its imports.

Between them, China and Japan have a population of 1.4 billion people, more than twice that of the European Union or the North American Free Trade Association. Their combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $8.4 trillion at market exchange rates in 2007 was about half that of the EU or NAFTA, but was combined with growth of 7% in 2007, a current account surplus of $560 billion (compared with deficits in the EU and the United States) and foreign exchange reserves of $2.4 trillion.

Thus, even a loose bilateral trade association between China and Japan would be a powerful economic force. Free trade and free movement of labor between the two countries would enable them to deepen their economic relationship still further, making the Japan-China trade axis the most important in the world – even more so than any bilateral U.S. relationship. Longer-term, an EU-style economic union – perhaps including such neighbors as Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam – could become the world’s leading economic power, surpassing even the United States and the EU itself.

As a U.S. geo-strategist, one worries somewhat about this. The United States has traditionally been able to count on Japan as a counterweight, both economically, and to a limited extent, militarily against a resurgent and aggressive China. That no longer seems to be so certain; an immensely powerful alliance between Japan and China might develop into the United States’ military equal, and would certainly be animated by a world view very different from that of the United States or, indeed, the EU countries.

As an investor, one rejoices in it and seeks to find sources of future profit from the two countries’ deepening relationship. One such source of profits are major Japanese companies such as Toshiba Corp. (PINK: TOSBF). This major manufacturer of computers, medical electronic equipment and telecommunications systems has developed a highly integrated manufacturing capability in China, enabling it to synergize its technical innovation with China’s highly skilled, low-cost workforce. Toshiba’s shares are trading at about 22 times earnings, reasonable for a high-tech company.

Another might be a Chinese automotive manufacturer such as Brilliance China Automotive Holdings (ADR: BCAHY), already a strong automobile and bus manufacturer in the Chinese domestic market, which has a joint venture with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, better-known as BMW, and potentially can benefit from its lower labor costs to attack the Japanese market. As relations between China and Japan improve, and tariff and non-tariff barriers in Japan are reduced, companies such as Brilliance may be major beneficiaries. Brilliance China trades at a pricey 48 times earnings, as it has only recently returned to profitability in the highly competitive Chinese automotive market, but its long term prospects appear excellent.

There are two categories of beneficiaries from a trading relationship between China and Japan that’s closer and more-barrier free.

The first group consists chiefly of Japanese high-tech companies that are able to take advantage of China’s lower labor costs and more-profitably attack the world markets.

The second group consists of low-cost, China-based manufacturing companies that can sell to Japan as a particularly juicy nearby market with similar cultural and taste characteristics – unlike the unfamiliar west.

Both types of companies are likely to be big long-term winners from this trend.

[Editor’s Note: For additional China profit plays, check out this special offer by Money Morning that includes a free copy of investing guru Jim Rogers’ new bestseller, "A Bull in China." The book details Rogers’ investment outlook for China plus his opinion on dozens of China-based public companies.]

Source: Two Ways to Profit as China and Japan Quietly Forge the Most Powerful Trading Alliance in the World

A special report jointly developed by U.K. affiliate MoneyWeek Magazine and the experts at Money Morning explores the automobile industry and how investors can benefit. For more information on MoneyWeek, please click here.

Every automobile on the roads of the world reflects a long and complex chain of industrial production and energy usage. Yet we live in a world where many of the highest quality resources and energy supplies have already been exploited and lower quality resources are more expensive to extract and exploit, if they are even available. So the world’s automobile industry is in the midst of a revolution in both resource availability and energy consumption.

Today the automobile business is vast. It is a global industry that has evolved by leaps and bounds in the 100 years since Henry Ford made his famous remark in 1908 about building “a car for the great multitude.” The worldwide customer base includes at least a billion people – spread over six continents – who have sufficient income to buy a car or small truck.

According to figures assembled at the MIT Sloan Automotive Laboratory, there are about 700 million automobiles and light trucks in the world. About 30% of those vehicles are in North America.

Every car requires steel, aluminum, copper and lead. Each car requires rubber, plastic, and myriad of other petroleum and natural gas by-products. And there is much else in the long industrial ladder of automobile production. Just think in terms of the energy that goes into processing materials, fabricating parts, building components, assembling a finished product – and all the transportation along the way.

In addition to the basic energy and material resources that go into manufacturing an automobile, the sheer number of vehicles reflects a lot of fuel tanks to fill with gasoline and diesel. And this does not even touch on the energy and resources that go into building road systems.

Oil Crises – 25 Years Ago and Today

The oil shocks of the 1970s – in both price and availability – spurred improvements in auto energy efficiency within the United States as well as worldwide. In the United States, the increase in fuel efficiency was related to rising costs for gasoline, as well as government mandates for higher fuel efficiency dating from the late 1970s.

On average over the past 25 years, the typical power train of gasoline-fueled automobiles in the United States has improved in efficiency by about 1% per year according to data gathered by MIT. While discrete, 1% improvements may not appear to be much, the compound improvement in the typical U.S. automotive engine over 25 years has been about 30%.

There has been even more progress in the fuel efficiency of diesel engines over the past 25 years. Diesel power trains are no longer the sooty “knock-knock” devices that they were back in the days of disco. Most cars sold today in the European Union (EU), for example, are powered with clean-burning, fuel efficient, smoothly running diesel engines.

In fact, the demand for diesel fuel in Europe is such that EU refineries routinely ship surplus gasoline to sell in the North American market. And in North America the relatively low prices for gasoline throughout the 1980s and 1990s discouraged the use of diesel engines.

So there have been significant improvements in automobile power train efficiencies over the past couple of decades. But have these improvements translated into any overall reduction in demand for fuel? No.

In 2007, motor fuel consumption in the United States was as high as it has ever been (Although according to the American Petroleum Institute, demand for motor fuel may be at a plateau due to price increases at the pump in 2006 and 2007.). In the past 25 years, we’ve seen more people driving more cars for more miles. But compounding the fuel issue, the cars that people are buying and driving tend to weigh more and offer higher performance.

Is a Car-dependent Culture Sustainable?

We live in a world of peaking oil output, and of energy and resource scarcity. So the trend lines for fuel usage by automobiles simply cannot continue for much longer. The most obvious sign is the rising price for oil and by extension for fuel at the pump. Something has got to give, and the energy markets are sending signals of long-term high prices for motor fuel. Where do we go from here?

Well first, people and policy makers have to realize that there is an energy problem. Everyone has to realize that this is something permanent, going forward. “Peak Oil” will not pass if we ignore it long enough. And no one can solve the problem just by bellyaching about the rising price for gasoline.

It helps to view the age of the automobile – and its future – as a systemic whole. And some social critics are out in front of the broad discussion, with a sharp focus on the automobile and what it has brought us as a society. James Kunstler, for example, author of highly regarded books such as The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency, believes that the car-dependent suburban build-out in the United States may be “the greatest misallocation of resources in all of human history.”