Finally there is population. The idea that population and trade go hand in hand stretches
back to the nineteenth-century trader’s dream of ‘oil for the lamps of China’. If there are
enough people, it was argued,
there is great trading potential.
Much the same hopes were
extended to South American
countries such as Brazil. In both
cases the expectations were disappointed
and trade was slow to
develop, despite the size of the
population. For example, China
has a population of 1.3 billion,
ten times Japan’s 128 million, but
in 2004 it imported 25% less
cargo (see Figure 10.5). A statistical
analysis of the relationship
between population and trade
shows virtually no correlation.
The correlation coefficient is 0.2.
If nothing else, this demonstrates
that sea trade is primarily an
economic phenomenon.