Japan was China’s fourth-largest trade partner in 2019, behind the European Union, the Asean bloc and the United States, with annual bilateral imports and exports valued at US$315.03 billion, with South Korea sixth at US$284.58 billion, according to Chinese customs data.

They also both ranked in the top five for imports into China in 2019, led by electrical components and chemical products, which are essential for China’s vast manufacturing machine, topping the list.

Analysts from Guotai Junan Securities, led by chief economist Hua Changchun, said on Monday that the supply chains linked to the production of cars, machinery, optical-electronic equipment, and chemical products could suffer short-term shocks if the outbreak expanded further in Japan.

China’s heavy dependence on purchasing semiconductor materials, industrial robots, engine parts, cameras and related goods from Japan could also prove to be problematic, the analysts said.

“The industries that face potential risks from the epidemic in Japan overlap with some of those influenced by domestic outbreaks in badly infected provinces [in China],” Guotai Junan Securities said.

According to a survey, last week by TSR, a Tokyo-based marketing research company, 66.4 percent of the 12,348 Japanese companies interviewed said they had either already been impacted by the coronavirus, or expected to be.

The manufacturing sector was among the worst hit, with nearly 30 percent of surveyed companies reporting an impact, while another 51.7 percent expected losses in the future.

Machine tool orders received by Japanese manufacturers slumped 35.6 percent from a year earlier in January, declining for the 16th straight month, hitting the lowest monthly level in seven years, according to the data from the Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association.

“In the context of weak investment into equipment, the epidemic of new pneumonia becomes a new threat,” said association chairman Yukio Iimura, according to The Nikkei. “It will take up to one month sometimes for negotiations [because] commercial talks cannot be completed.”

Analysts from China International Capital Corporation, one of the country’s leading investment banking firms, said that if the epidemic were to spread faster in South Korea, more companies would likely reduce their production or even shut down, “adding insult to injury” to Korean manufacturing, especially the key electronics, steel, automotive, shipbuilding, and electrical equipment sectors.

Last weekend, Samsung Electronics was forced to shut down a handset factory in South Korea after confirming one of its employees had been infected, while LG Electronics also temporarily shut down a research complex on Monday after confirming the child of a member of staff had been infected.

Factory shutdowns in China and South Korea have also resulted in a significant decline in shipping movements, with 46 percent of scheduled shipments between Asia and northern Europe canceled, according to ocean freight data firm Alphaliner.

“Disrupted flows of essential items may cause a shock in European and American supply chains. In addition, less incoming goods from Asia will also mean fewer intra-European re-exports from the coastal regions to inland European countries,” said Timme Spakman, an economist at ING.