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>Not yet. But 20 years ago, we weren't having this conversation of China even being seen as a threat. Twenty years ago, Japan was the "threat" and the zeitgeis

>Not yet. But 20 years ago, we weren't having this conversation of China even being seen as a threat. Twenty years ago, Japan was the "threat" and the zeitgeist was full of tropes of Japanese technology taking over the world.

laputan_machine 7y ago
Japan wasn't run by a dictator, didn't have tens of thousands of people from a particular religious group placed into concentration camps, or owned so much stock in particular US companies that they can get those very same US companies to bend over to their demands. It's not the same, and you know that.
- yorwba 7y ago
  Japan has put almost as much money ($1B) into US treasuries as China ($1.1B) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf Since China is "new money", Japan must have held more US debt at some point. It seems unlikely to me that this would not also extend to holding stakes in American companies.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  I was talking about the economic threat. I completely agree that The Japan of twenty years ago was a much freer place than China today and that they are not the same thing in terms of authoritarianism. Economically though, the two situations are similar.
ryanmercer 7y ago
Farther back than that even, go watch movies like Gung Ho from 1986 with Michael Keaton which did a good job at vilifying Japanese companies/Japan. >The local auto plant in fictional Hadleyville, Pennsylvania, which supplied most of the town's jobs, has been closed for nine months. The former foreman Hunt Stevenson goes to Tokyo to try to convince the Assan Motors Corporation to reopen the plant. The Japanese company agrees and, upon their arrival in the U.S., they take advantage of the desperate work force to institute many changes. The workers are not permitted a union, are paid lower wages, are moved around within the factory so that each worker learns every job, and are held to seemingly impossible standards of efficiency and quality. Adding to the strain in the relationship, the Americans find humor in the demand that they do calisthenics as a group each morning and that the Japanese executives eat their lunches with chopsticks and bathe together in the river near the factory. The workers also display a poor work ethic and lackadaisical attitude toward quality control.

laputan_machine 7y ago

Japan wasn't run by a dictator, didn't have tens of thousands of people from a particular religious group placed into concentration camps, or owned so much stock in particular US companies that they can get those very same US companies to bend over to their demands. It's not the same, and you know that.

yorwba 7y ago
Japan has put almost as much money ($1B) into US treasuries as China ($1.1B) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf Since China is "new money", Japan must have held more US debt at some point. It seems unlikely to me that this would not also extend to holding stakes in American companies.
alasdair_ 7y ago
I was talking about the economic threat. I completely agree that The Japan of twenty years ago was a much freer place than China today and that they are not the same thing in terms of authoritarianism. Economically though, the two situations are similar.

ryanmercer 7y ago

Farther back than that even, go watch movies like Gung Ho from 1986 with Michael Keaton which did a good job at vilifying Japanese companies/Japan. >The local auto plant in fictional Hadleyville, Pennsylvania, which supplied most of the town's jobs, has been closed for nine months. The former foreman Hunt Stevenson goes to Tokyo to try to convince the Assan Motors Corporation to reopen the plant. The Japanese company agrees and, upon their arrival in the U.S., they take advantage of the desperate work force to institute many changes. The workers are not permitted a union, are paid lower wages, are moved around within the factory so that each worker learns every job, and are held to seemingly impossible standards of efficiency and quality. Adding to the strain in the relationship, the Americans find humor in the demand that they do calisthenics as a group each morning and that the Japanese executives eat their lunches with chopsticks and bathe together in the river near the factory. The workers also display a poor work ethic and lackadaisical attitude toward quality control.