9 Dec 2025
I thank CSIS and Japan External Trade Organization for the wonderful discussion on USA-Japan economic relations and the importance of the partnership to maintain the stability in the Indo- Pacific.
As both nations are a part of the quadrilateral security dialogue it came as no surprise that the discussion gravitated towards strengthening of supply chains especially for critical minerals that are essential to sectors including electronics,clean energy and defense.
It is no secret[1-3] that the technology transfers from the USA have built valuable, immensely wealthy electronics industries of south east Asia. The so-called Asian tiger economies are essentially seeded by USA tech. While the offshoring created immense wealth for Asian economies these decisions were not always welcome back at home in the USA. The policies aimed at reshoring that have been the defining trait of Trump presidencies stems from the discontent that many American manufacturers feel in competing with firms they trained.
Former PM Ishiba visited the USA earlier this year to reaffirm the strategic importance of US -Japan partnership and president Trump reciprocated warmly by meeting with PM Takaichi [4-5]. The speakers noted that Japan, like several other nations, has been hit by US tariffs but it's clear that at the highest level of leadership the relationship remains strong.
Many of the sharpest minds in the US today from the think tanks that shape policy to the leaders in the government and private sector view China as a threat. But the reality is more complex and not quite as straightforward as many would like to think. History can be quite revealing.
The common belief among political scholars is to attribute the build up of diplomatic relations between China and USA to Nixon/Kissinger and while it's true that their initiatives did establish a relation with modern communist china the actual contact had happened centuries before [6-8]
Thousands of Chinese migrants in the 1850s helped build the transcontinental railroad. The first US merchant ship reached China in the 1780s and a treaty with the Qing dynasty was established in 1844. China US relations were established long before the first contact was made with Japan.
Earlier this September I had the pleasure of attending the display week happening in conjunction with semicon India where I met several business leaders from South East Asia. Tarriffs were a common theme of discussion.
In pop culture famous characters like detective charlie chan [9] paved the way for other Chinese artists to follow that would become immensely popular with the rise of Hollywood.
There has been some strain in the relationship but it's nowhere near as acrimonious as mainstream media tries to portray. Apple alone has invested more than $275 BILLION in China. Today the Chinese immigrants [10-15] are serving as professors in leading universities,as CEOs of powerful firms,in the military and in high political offices in not just the USA but in all of the so-called 5 eyes countries.
They are not just leaders in their domains but also form critical diplomatic bridges between China and the USA. The visit by Jensen Huang to Beijing preceded the high profile meeting between presidents Trump and Xi[16-17]
Given the history of ties between USA and China and strengthening people to people relations that survived COVID & the political hysteria that followed it was mildly amusing to witness the exasperation among the speakers trying to justify a war between USA and China by making statements that these actions are being taken to protect the interests of collective west. Evidence points in a different direction.
Former German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s china mission in 2024 made a clear statement[18] that despite the rhetoric, the west is actually eager to strengthen its relation with China and thus raised a very important question: what does it actually mean for the future of japan US relations?
In his book end of history fukuyama praised capitalism and argued for liberal democracy as the final and best form of governance. Great Scotsman Adam Smith echoed similar sentiments centuries before Fukuyama. But something else has happened in the years that followed. Today politics is run by business entities. The high philosophical ideologies that shaped governance in the past are no longer dominant.
So much of foreign policy has become about trade , this is concerning because while the leaders,the people may not want a trade war private business corporations certainly do. They want protection by the state from invasive foreign competitors and strike at their weaknesses. These intentions remain hidden behind a cloak of ‘national interest’ but it's quite clear that's the principal reason why some political scientists are actually pushing for a ‘reassessment’ of relations.
It's unlikely that the powerful interest groups would be ignored. But perhaps some lessons from the founding father Ben Franklin, who advocated for unity among American leaders and later James Monroe who extended this idea to the American states giving voice to what many LATAM nations already felt, could be useful. The USA and other nations in North and South America need to intensify cooperation. The organisation of American states must play a principal role in deepening partnership.
As the world becomes more fragmented due to the rising sentiment of protectionism among powerful corporations, the American nations must stand united as they have in the past.
People need to play a more important role in diplomacy. This entire trade war is sustained by lobbies who are keen to protect their own interests. But it's equally important that we don't reduce the foreign relations to mere mercantilism.
REFERENCES
1 The East Asian Electronics Sector
https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/east-asian-electronics-sector/D64206BFD71391247E5DB1CCAA5261CD
2 Learning and technological progress in the East Asian electronics industry
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/learning-and-technological-progress-east-asian-electronics-industry
3 US-Japanese knowledge transfer programme in the aftermath of WWII
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/us-japanese-knowledge-transfer-programme-aftermath-wwii
4 Visit to the United States
https://japan.kantei.go.jp/103/actions/202509/23usa.html
5 President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
https://www.whitehouse.gov/gallery/president-donald-trump-participates-in-a-bilateral-meeting-with-japanese-prime-minister-sanae-takaichi/
6 China–United States relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_relations
7 The Archeology of Chinese Laborers Who Connected the Country
https://www.nps.gov/articles/archeology-of-chinese-laborers-connected-country.htm
8 Stanford project gives voice to Chinese workers who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/04/giving-voice-to-chinese-railroad-workers
9 Charlie Chan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan
10 Apple’s Investment in China… more than quadruple the Marshall Plan
https://chinaarticles.substack.com/p/apples-investment-in-china-more-than
11 Chinese Americans: By the Numbers
https://aapidata.com/featured/chinese-americans-by-the-numbers/
12 U.S. Military Casualties - Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Wounded in Action - All
https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties/oif/woundedAll
13 Stories of Chinese Immigrant Faculty in North American Higher Education
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/679288?journalCode=cer
14 Chinese CEOs Achieve 'Grand Slam' in U.S. Top 4 Semiconductor Firms
https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=237489
15 Penelope Ying-Yen Wong Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Wong
16 Jensen Huang woos Beijing as Nvidia finds a way back into China
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/16/as-nvidia-gets-a-lifeline-in-china-jensen-huang-goes-on-the-charm-offensive-in-beijing.html
17 What happened when Trump met Xi?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-happened-when-trump-met-xi/
18 Germany to strengthen exchanges, cooperation with China: Scholz
https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202502/16/content_WS67b131c6c6d0868f4e8efadd.html
Akshat Jiwan Sharma
Strategy Consultant--Innovation/ Materials science/International relations/Telecommunications/Digital Transformation/Partnerships
Mobile/whatsapp:+919654119771
email:getellobed@gmail.com
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