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True Story of the 1980s, When Everyone Was Convinced Japan Would Buy America
- mistermann 8y agoThat was a very interesting read especially if you try to imagine yourself being an average person in either country, thanks.
- gumby 8y agoIf anyone doesn't remember this (perhaps you weren't around then) it's worth reviewing this when you read the absurd statements made about China. Yes China is big, yes china is (still) growing fast, yes China wants to be more powerful on the world stage. And yes, China raises some challenges/risks to the western/OECD countries. But the level of the risks as they are today and in the near future are significantly overblown because to do so is useful to those who bang the drum. And china itself faces many internal structural risks which are underweighed (or flat out ignored) both by those who want to tout China as a risk and by the Chinese government itself. My favorite deal of the 1980s (1990) was when Martin Davis sold Pebble Beach to a Japanese developer. This was widely described in the press as evidence that the Japanese were about to take over the US (OMG the real estate value of the imperial palace exceeds the entire real estate value of California!!!!). Of course a few years later it was back in the hands of its original owners, the Pebble Beach company, for less than the Japanese buyers had paid. Now one story doesn't make a trend, but this high profile one is indicative of the situation. Some low-publicity slow-and-steady purchases have done well and the same in reverse (US companies in Japan). I expect the same with China.
- cm2187 8y agoEconomists are great at taking the run rate of the last 12 months and extrapolating it for 30 years...
- programminggeek 8y agoSo are climate scientists.
- makerofspoons 8y agoSince 1973 climate models have proven to be quite accurate: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
- Symmetry 8y agoAnd, importantly, scientists were worried about greenhouse warming before it was every actually observed. All the theories about Japan's supposedly more efficient system came well after Japan's rapid growth started. EDIT: Well, to add a bit of detail everybody knew way back when that if CO2 ended up in the atmosphere it would cause global warming. But most scientists thought it be absorbed by the sea instead and atmospheric CO2 would barely rise. Turns out that secondary effects made the sea go and release the CO2 it absorbed so here we are. I think scientific consensus didn't swing against absorption until the data really started to come in showing it wasn't but the important thing is that many people predicted Global Warming in advance of the evidence and the only credible argument against it, before the data, was something we now clearly see isn't happening.
- curuinor 8y agoJapan, however, at that point was a liberal democracy with rights and stuff. Can't say that about the PRC.
- jhwang5 8y agoHmm it's not a democracy in the traditional sense. A single party has been in power for 40+ years.
- twblalock 8y ago> Hmm it's not a democracy in the traditional sense. A single party has been in power for 40+ years. Thats not true. One party has been dominant over the past 40+ years because it won most of the elections, which are free and fair elections according to international standards. Plenty of opposition parties have been active the entire time, they just weren't popular enough to win. They are not suppressed or restricted or thrown in jail -- they just aren't able to convince the voters. There have been periods, including quite recently, when opposition parties held power. Their performance while in power caused the voters to vote for the dominant party next time.
- Symmetry 8y agoYou're a bit out of date, the DPJ managed to get into office recently before losing to the LDP again.
- lkrubner 8y agoIn the USA the Democrats held the House from 1954 to 1994, which is 40 years, but people felt the USA was still a democracy during this time. Even in competitive political systems, sometimes one party puts together a broad coalition that can hold power for decades.
- twblalock 8y agoAnother example is the UK Conservative Party holding power for 18 years from 1979 to 1997 by winning every election during that period. It would not have been reasonable to say the UK was not a democracy in that period -- it was just the case that the voters preferred one party the entire time.
- ghaff 8y agoThe other thing you got in the 80s was a lot of cargo-culting of Japanese industrial planning practices. People like Lester Thurow (Nobel Prize in Economics) went around telling anyone who would listen that we needed large-scale government/industry partnerships like MITI if we weren't going to fall even further behind. Sematech was one outcome in the US around semiconductors. (It's still around but never had much impact.
- howard941 8y agoThank you for spurring a search engine trip to this interesting article about Sematech https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424786/lessons-from-sematech/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424786/lessons-from-semat...
- ghaff 8y agoThat is interesting. That article sounds a much more positive note than what I recollected. I was admittedly on the periphery of the semiconductor space but I never heard much about them after the initial splash.
- kuwze 8y agoThere is a really good book on the US reaction: “R&D Collaboration on Trial”[0]. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Collaboration-Trial-Microelectronics-Technology-Corporation/dp/0875843646 https://www.amazon.com/Collaboration-Trial-Microelectronics-...
- ghaff 8y agoInterestingly, it's happening today on a fairly large scale in software--through open source. Open source has removed a lot of the barriers to cooperation because it can happen at least somewhat informally without a lot of the traditional legal and IP paperwork associated with consortia.
- Symmetry 8y agoOn the other hand, Japan had half the population of the US while China has four times the population. The tendency of countries to converge on similar productivity was working against Japan but is very much working for China.
- throwaway5752 8y agoCan't be repeated enough. Totally incomparable populations, natural resources, military size, and monetary situation between yen and renminbi. It's quite embarrassing, really, because the frequency of this comparison is almost certainly due to American perception of ethnicity. You don't see India/80's Japan comparisons or Brazil/80's Japan comparisons as often.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- peteretep 8y ago> the frequency of this comparison is almost certainly due to American perception of ethnicity. You don't see India/80's Japan comparisons or Brazil/80's Japan comparisons as often. Isn't it more likely that that's because neither India nor Brazil have economies anywhere near the size or importance of America's, and don't appear to be on any kind of trajectory that will get them there?
- clairity 8y agomaybe in a decade or two, folks myopically focused on building walls and fighting invader-terrorists will realize that immigration is a net good, and the principle way to keep china in check as it grows larger and more formidable (not as a threat but as a competitor). hopefully it won't be too late. think of the children.
- artificial 8y agoThe argument being made conflates illegal and legal immigration. American legal immigration continues to exceed one million annually, easily dwarfing any other country.
- decebalus1 8y agoI wouldn't say it's the same. China has imperial ambitions which gives the IMF a run for its money (no pun intended). Japan attempted that but faces a much stronger western opposition. While the rest of the world is facing destabilization, China is silently taking over their part of the world.
- wbl 8y agoWhat imperial ambitions in the 1980's? Selling us cars that don't break isn't conquering manchuria.
- decebalus1 8y agoattempted to create an IMF rival
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stcredzero 8y agoI'm not an expert, but for anyone who would like to get more info on geopolitics, I recommend the "Geographical Challenges" videos from Stratfor, which can be found on YouTube. Whether you like or dislike Stratfor, I find the geographic and historical analysis of various countries are spot-on and highly valuable. This is especially relevant for understanding China in the context of 21st century geopolitics. China has many of the same geographic advantages of Europe and North America. It's likely that China will want to extend its influence in its region, just as the US did when "The Monroe Doctrine" was formulated. On the other hand, China, when viewed on the longest historical time scales, seems somewhat metastable. My guess on the future: China will try to become a rival to the US for global dominance, and there will be naval conflict over who is in charge in the far east -- unless China follows another long term pattern, destabilizes and changes regimes. The former is far likelier than the latter.
- forkLding 8y agoI've never understood why people are so insecure about Chinese companies or East Asian companies rising up, given that the world is 1/5 Chinese and even more East Asians, of course there are going to be large and prosperous Chinese companies because if they can manage to scale to dominate the Chinese market, they can thrive on their internal markets alone. Doesn't have to be just American companies dominating another nation's market. (Same with India and South Asia) Japanese companies still buy up American companies just like American companies buy up Japanese. Indeed, the job search company was bought for a billion dollars by a Japanese company. Sony PlayStation, Nintendo and the car companies are doing better than ever. It's just it's no longer in people's eyes or really news anymore. It's also why Starbucks, KFC and Apple have been aggressively growing in China cos there is such a great market in China and East Asia in general.
- chillacy 8y agoLargely cultural factors and political ones. America still has a good relationship with japan (I.e. can control japan), China has a UNSC seat and is quite fond of going after its ambitions, looking to a world beyond American hegemony.
- SilasX 8y agoThe fear of Japan was also fossilized in the classic Crichton novel Rising Sun (1992, made a movie the year later). But it quickly became aged, as that was right at the tail of the mania.
- mzs 8y agoIt ended when bubble burst in Japan. China is a controlled economy.
- gumby 8y agoMeaning the shock will be worse or such a shock can't happen? If anything, I presume the former.
- oliwarner 8y agoJapan essentially turned itself into a Western level society in 40 years. Meteoric post-war recovery, climaxing in a shift from manufacturing and agriculture to softer work like software and finance. Property costs started to spike. Debts become silly. And when everybody starts to default after a small economic contraction, banks start going out of business. Economy crumbles. Sound familiar? China has the numbers and control in a way Japan never did. Their growth has been slower and in that time, the West, China's market, has all but ceased manufacturing. China owns (almost quite literally) poorer countries in Africa. They sponsor mining infrastructure, they buy mines and they have a local workforce that will turn up for bread. If China ever develops a substantial middle class (as the West and Japan did) they can shift their manufacturing to another country they have control. They still own all the natural resources, they just need people (or tech) to build it all. They don't just own Africa, they underwrite huge national debts. They've started selling these to other cash-rich countries. China is controlled. They want more agriculture, they say so. They want to avoid explosive growth, they implement a one child policy. I'll sure something could trip them up, but they have exit routes for most major historical economic issues. And totalitarian control as gravy.
- stunt 8y agoIt is more complicated than that. I was reading recently about how the Shah of Iran was ended and how the US intentionally helped that happen while they were allies. I dug into that more. Shah of Iran didn't have any imperial ambitions but the west didn't support him because of geopolitics reasons. > The Shah of Iran had promoted secular rule and thus he believed that he would be embraced by the west. He also believed that his transformation of Iran from a near Middle Ages nation to a modern nation would be appreciated by the world at large. But, instead, he had gone too far too fast for Western interests. https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-the-USA-help-the-Shah-of-Iran https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-the-USA-help-the-Shah-of-Ira... Same story but a different reason how British and Roosevelt did influence on Mosaddegh's overthrow! While Mosaddegh was doing everything that we would praise by today's standards and our modern values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh When you read two stories you just realize how geopolitics reasons can be unfair sometimes. Many countries are destabilized because of regimes changes for sake of geopolitics reasons. And it is really hard to say if there is any positive outcome for anyone in it.
- jedberg 8y agoYou know how in Back to the Future 2 at the beginning Marty of 2015 works for a Japanese company? That's because in 1990, when the movie came out, everyone assumed that you'd work for a Japanese company in 2015.
- sureaboutthis 8y agoIn 1984 or so, I was installing a new system my company designed in an elementary school. One of the kids asked if I could visit their class and talk about computers. During a Q&A, one asked about Japan taking over microprocessor manufacturing. I said something along the lines of "I don't see it. A lot of their chips are just copycats of US chips and they don't work that well. I can't see Japan taking over the market." I immediately noticed all eyes switching over to their teacher and I quickly scrambled to help her save face but I don't remember what I said.
- makerofspoons 8y agoThis belief also manifested itself in the way 2019 Los Angeles is portrayed in Blade Runner.
- chromaton 8y agoAlso Max Headroom, Neuromancer, Robocop, and a host of others. The first science fiction that I saw that deliberately bucked this trend was Earth by David Brin. There's a line something like "Can you believe that back in the late 20th century everybody thought Nihon was going to control the world's economy?"
- mcguire 8y agoSee also Neuromancer.
- mortenjorck 8y agoIt was surprising to see the fluff listicle format popularized by Buzzfeed employed in a thoughtful tour of primary sources like this. As an easily-digestible exploration of the cultural-economic axis of the peak of the Japanese Miracle, it really worked, even if I kept expecting to see an animated gif captioned “TFW…”
- vages 8y agoYeah. It took surprisingly long before I realized how similar the format was (the Voltron point). I liked it.
- sct202 8y agoI think part of the reason that China seems so scary is that they're way less developed than Japan was comparatively to the US in the 1980s. So if China's already threatening at 13% per capita American GDP, imagine what they'll be at 25%.
- benj111 8y agoI did GCSE business studies in the 90s. It was basically just Japanese case studies. I still remember learning about Kaizen, when was the last time anyone (outside of Japan) used that word?
- commandlinefan 8y agoI was so convinced that this was inevitable I went ahead and studied Japanese in college and did a foreign exchange program there, since I figured I'd surely end up working for a Japanese company. Now I'm a little disappointed that I've never been able to use my Japanese.
- soneca 8y agoThe Hollywood version of this is fairly fun: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)
- empath75 8y agoA little bit before that, everyone thought "the Arabs" would buy everything -- see the movie Network. (No, I mean it, see it, it's brilliant).
- equalunique 8y agoIn similar hubris, many Americans believe Russians control their Democracy.
- TomMckenny 8y agoHysteria or not, you absolutely do not want foreign countries as rentiers, you very much want it the other way around. While trade is not zero-sum, it can be mutually beneficial. But payments for usage rights are not (whether IP, land, machinery, or even capital). Indeed, it is one of the core ways 19th century empires extracted wealth from colonies.
- rasz 8y agoI dont get this clipart scrap book article, are thy suggesting it blew over, got back to normal and its all good now like nothing happened? Lets consider just one example: video/TV industry. Not doing anything in the face of your market share going down to zero sure showed them! Frontline: Coming From Japan [The Fall Of The US Television Industry] (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c
- gullywhumper 8y agoHere's a Simpson's reference to Japan taking over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dacPpadOS1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dacPpadOS1A Longer clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq7wnMvLYg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq7wnMvLYg4
- mcguire 8y agoDidn't seem to mention the biggest factor in technology in that era: the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer Systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer?wpro... Didn't even mention Rising Sun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_%28film%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_%28film%29?wprov=sf...
- zozbot123 8y agoThe 5th gen computing project was ahead of its time to a rather amazing extent. It literally looks as if they took a peek at what computing technology has finally achieved in the 2000s and the 2010s, and then tried their best at reimplementing it from scratch through a 1980s lens.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lscore720 8y agoMichael Crichton gets a bit overzealous with Japan paranaoia in his 1992 novel, Rising Sun