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Comment by RobertoG | Hacker News Reader

So, the Chinese are evil. Maybe, but then, there is nothing exceptional about their evil.

If you are old enough you will remember when Japan were the evil one in the 80's.

Or we can go to the history books and see how all those tactics is what the USA used against Britain.

I went to the Toyota museum when I was visiting Japan. They had a display on how they got started: they purchased a Chevy vehicle from the US, brought it to Japan, disassembled it, and re-built it. Sounds familiar.

Japan was never considered evil in the 1980s, even the economic competition aspect is overblown in today’s view. China has always had a much more complicated relationship with the USA, even in the 80s when relations were at a peak due to the Sino Soviet split (and before Tiananmen).

This is a bit revisionist. As a kid I remember japan being pitched at the economic enemy quite a bit in the 80s and early 90s. "They're buying our country" was one refrain, like the claim with "the Chinese are why I can't buy a house" right now. Also things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(novel) and a lot of other fiction showing us (americanos) working for japanese business overlords. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS_17xMmmLY for another example.

That is a even a bit more revisionist, our relationship with Japan was very friendly in the 1980s, and the economic competition aspect was more benign even in the rust belt. As long as we are drawing from pop culture, the movie Gung Ho (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)) is a more accurate reflection of the sentiment of the time.

There has just to be a gung ho kind of movie for China, as far as I can tell. Likewise, Japan continued to be a top strategic ally of the USA in the 80s, it was never seen as a strategic competitor like China is today.

I remember relatives in the eighties expressing worries about the Japanese buying up farmland, and the movie Rising Sun or whatever - the theory being that what Japan couldn’t do militarily they were going to accomplish economically. There was concern about Japan as an enemy but never solidly like we have with China today. As you say, Japan never stopped being an ally, and China is barely this side of detente.

I agree - Everything was cool right up to the point where Japan started buying skyscrapers in NY then they became evil. But I would also agree before this gained any real traction, the Japan era was over. I think the issue with China is different. I think there are numerous unresolved tensions — too many to even enumerate here - that the US is unlikely to see China as anything but a competitor and vice versa. While I think it’s possible to avoid a conventional war, neither country seems to have thought about the consequences of an outright cyber war nor has either party developed any of the cyber stalemate equivalents that have kept nuclear war from happening so far.

>>"Japan was never considered evil in the 1980s"

I suppose we remember differently. An example: in 1991 George Friedman (the respected analyst, who, by the way, is predicting now the collapse of China) published "The coming war with Japan". Obviously the title is just "click-bait" but I think reflects what was in the zeitgeist then.

>>"China has always had a much more complicated relationship with the USA [..]"

Absolutely agree with that. After all, the constitution of Japan was basically redacted by the USA and militarily depends on the USA.

China is going to be a different matter and, that, I think, it's the real reason because China is considered even more "evil" than Japan, because subdue it it's going to be very difficult (if possible).

Being a west coaster obviously biases me a bit, I guess if you were living in Detroit the sentiment would be different. Actually, our beef with japan back then was related to the, trying to export their real estate bubble abroad, which is exactly what the Chinese are doing today :) (stop overpaying us for our housing, dammit!). Japan was definitely not seen as a strategic competitor in the 80s, no one was afraid of an invasion coming from them.

Pacifism a actually popular sentiment in japan; right wingers in the USA wish japan would drift away from that.

> no one was afraid of an invasion coming from them

I don’t disagree, but it’s ironic that this was also the sentiment in the 40’s, and then Japan literally invaded (Alaska, after the surprise attack on Hawaii).

During World War Two, Japanese forces invaded two remote islands with less than ten thousand troops, voluntarily abandoned one island, and were kicked off the other a year later. It was in all likelihood a diversion during the Battle of Midway. With such a small force and so little materiel committed, it posed little real threat to the U.S. West Coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_campaign

The Chinese aren't evil, they are violating the WTO agreement and the US is using it's economic power to check them.

And comparing the USA and Britain is insane. It's like comparing brothers to complete strangers.

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