Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethbro | Hacker News Reader

History-ironically, I (as an American) would be less worried if Germany were rising at China's pace.

Similarly, in the 90s everyone thought Japan was going to eclipse the US economically, and (to my recollection) they weren't seen as geopolitical rivals to the US.

Maybe it has something to do with population size, but IMO it is more to do with their economic structure and system of government. Japan is a democracy, and they believe in markets. Since War 2 they also seem a little less pushy with their neighbours...

they can't be a rival to the US when their defense is provided by the US and they host 50k US military units (vs. 250k currently active units in the whole japanese army).

I don't think your recollection is entirely accurate. The Plaza Accords was signed for a reason.

Interesting fact. Circa-1910 (from memory) there was major anxiety about immigrant Japanese workers taking low-wage jobs in the US.

To the extent that Japan was encouraged and did "voluntarily" limit migration.

How the wheel of time turns... different players, same games.

You say that now but if they had a credible army you'd have the same feeling. Right now Germany is toothless, still in the shadow of US occupation as losers of WW2. They have no independent foreign policy; they're choosing to stay out of it and focus on domestic issues. It is a similar story with Japan. But Japan is actually recently starting to be more active, building their army, with the goal of countering China.

> They have no independent foreign policy

Where do you get that idea? Germany is one of the most active countries in diplomacy and is at odds with the US all the time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com