China (with HK added in) is Japan's top trader

China, including Hong Kong, displaced the United States as Japan's biggest trade partner in 2004, Japanese Finance Ministry data showed. Trade volume totaled US$213.3bn, ahead of Japan-US trade volume of US$198.8bn. China-HK trade accounted for a fifth of Japan's total trade. Removing Hong Kong from the equation left China with 16.5% of trade, and the US with 18.5%. Japan's hollowing out shifting manufacturing operations to cheaper China partly explained the rise in Sino-Japanese trade, analysts said.