TOKYO — The Nidec Corporation likes to say it makes everything that “spins and moves,” from the intricate motors that whir in hard drives to the hulking ones used on oil rigs.

In recent years, things had been going well for the company. Global demand for precision engineering, especially from China, increased sales for Nidec and other Japanese companies, helping to lift long-sluggish Japan out of its economic doldrums.

Then sales to China plunged in November and December as the country’s economy slowed. Nidec, which counts on China for about 40 percent of its revenue, slashed its profit projections by more than 25 percent.

“I’ve been in management for 46 years,” the company’s founder and chief executive, Shigenobu Nagamori, told reporters in January, “and seeing our monthly orders plummet like this is a first.”