As President Donald Trump lands in Japan Saturday amid a worsening trade war with China, he could well be thinking back to a previous economic spat between Washington and an Asian economic powerhouse.
In the 1980s, Japan was the big bad. Its economy was booming — the second largest in the world — and many in the United States feared they were about to be overtaken.
Things quickly turned sour for Tokyo. As the yen increased in value, Japanese products became more and more expensive, and countries turned away from the one-time export powerhouse.
Efforts by the country's central bank to keep the yen's value low sparked a stock price bubble, the collapse of which helped push the country into recession and a "lost decade."
The US attacked Toshiba not because it sold equipment to the Soviet Union, but because it affected US interests. The United States believes that the Japanese semiconductor industry represented by Toshiba Group seriously threatens the economic interests of the United States, while the Japanese high-end manufacturing plan threatens the United States and challenges the technological hegemony of the United States.
Looking back more than 30 years ago, the experience of Toshiba, Japan, and looking at what the United States is doing today, there are indeed many similarities.
回顾30多年前东芝的遭遇,再看看当下美国的所作所为,确实有许多相似之处。
The United States does not allow its high-end manufacturing industry to be challenged at all, nor does it allow its technological hegemony to be challenged. The United States hopes that other countries will all be American workers and will never allow other countries to become shareholders of American interests.
Of course 2019 is not 1985, and China is not Japan. Beijing is far stronger both economically and politically than Tokyo was in the 1980s, with Japan dependent on the United States for national security and less willing to risk Washington's ire.
在日美贸易战中初获经验(cut their teeth)的美国或许以为中国也会很容易地向美国低头。但如今的中国,在经济和政治上的独立性都比当年的日本要强得多,可不是任人揉捏的“软柿子”。
"Japan was an easy target for US bashing. After the second world war, Japan has been both politically and economically dependent on the US, resulting in limited bargaining power to counteract the US," analysts Alicia Garcia-Herrero and Kohei Iwahara wrote last week.