It's very different this time. Japan was under the American umbrella of influence when it was supposedly going to take over. China is a rival and a resource-rich nuclear super power with orders of magnitude more leverage and a very different set of cultural norms and behaviors.

I don't think it will go the way it did with Japan.

Japan had a larger GDP per capita than the US from 1987 until 2000.

Inflation adjusted their GDP was nearly as large in 1995 as China's is today. They did that with 1/11th the population. China will never accomplish something that dramatic economically.

Japan held a lot more influence over the US at the time precisely because we were allies. China will never be allowed to acquire large numbers of important US companies (and vice versa), because we're unlikely to ever be allies. Japan's holdings of the US national debt back then as a % were also far greater than China's position is today.

In 1991, it was Japanese billionaires dominating the global richest 50 list. Taikichiro Mori and Yoshiaki Tsutsumi were the two richest people in the world, at $15b and $14b. That's nothing like what is occurring today, American billionaires are dominant.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was the Japanese corporate giants that ruled the global economy. Today it's American corporate giants by a large margin. China's giants mostly can't leave their own borders and never will. The regressive command economy straight-jacket - mixed with political doctrine-based restraints - that their companies are permanently ruled by, won't allow it.

China's leverage today is not orders of magnitude greater than Japan at its economic peak. Asia as an example was far poorer across the board in 1985-1995 than it is today, Japan towered over Asia economically in a way China never will. In 1985, South Korea's GDP per capita was 20% that of Japan; China was 2.5% that of Japan; and so on.

China does not seem to be at its peak yet. It can't be compared to Japan at its peak.

You should consider writing dialogue for Reagan-era action movie satires about muscle-bound heroes bravely fighting the red menace.

"China will never accomplish something that dramatic economically."

What China's accomplished in reducing extreme poverty, given their starting point under the Mao regime, is nothing short of miraculous. It has far wider reaching lessons for developing countries than Japan's post-war boom does.

"China's giants mostly can't leave their own borders and never will. The regressive command economy straight-jacket..."

When you have a billion + people, it makes sense to focus on that market first. Anyway, the US wouldn't be warning partners about Huawei if their equipment wasn't a key part of most nations' telecom infrastructure already.

I tend to agree. "It will be like last time!" doesn't pan out when viewing history. The only constant is the shift in power dynamics.

That's a bit of a supremacist take, no offense.

Maybe rather than complaining about it, we should actually build things?

Maybe we should pay a schoolteacher more than 1/4 what an advertising optimizer makes?

No offense taken, but curious how you see it as supremacist.

Not you specifically but more the thread.

We sell everything to the highest bidder, buy from the cheapest supplier, but then when it's a Chinese company investing it's suddenly a cultural crisis?

If a German company was buying part of Reddit, would it be the same cultural crisis?

No, because Germany is also a democracy supporting almost identical views on freedom of expression.

OK, I"m a German investor with a board seat, and I insist that Reddit block subs featuring Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi content from appearing for users with German IP addresses. We still good?

Is that a cultural fact about them?

No because we respect Germany more than China, for obvious reasons. China's conduct in business, treatment of its own people, politics and history should raise enough red flags.

Hell, China's flag is literally red.

The difference is that China has an expressly anti-democratic ideology, and its government has so far been enthusiastic about weaponizing the private sector to further its influence. That's a terrifying thing when combined with ownership over American companies, especially media companies.

Good insight, this is the fact as I known

Japan is a democracy with basic rights like freedom of speech. China is currently an extremely censorship heavy totalitarian state. It doesn't seem unreasonable to be concerned about such a repressive state gaining increasing influence over our media via these types of investments.