Hidetoshi Tashiro, chief economist of Japan's Infinity LLC and CEO of Terra Nexus Project Management Services, said China has long been an economy Japan "cannot decouple" from. To sustain its economic vitality, he noted, Japan has no choice but to maintain close supply-chain cooperation with China, which possesses the world's largest and most comprehensive production system. Undermining this structure, Tashiro warned, would be tantamount to "suicide" for Japan.