If it's a democracy and reasonably friendly to the USA, it's not a big deal. In the 1990s everyone thought Japan was going to be the next superpower and that was just fine.

are you kidding? the US forced Japan to sign the plaza accord effectively ending Japan's rise. that was followed by 30 years close to zero economic growth.

you are not mature enough to discuss such topic if you believe the US will be happy to be taken over by some democratic friends.

I am intrigued by the notion that the Plaza Accord was a lynchpin that stopped Japan, and I'm sure better minds have debated it than me, but I don't quite see how a currency accord that didn't shift the trade flows or even the dollar that much, and which was reversed a couple years later in the Louvre Accord, really killed Japan's rise.

My perception is that Japan, after some great success, went through a normal semi-inevitable asset bubble, but their response was uniquely Japanese. Rather than letting firms and the social contract of lifetime employment (particularly for older workers) go bankrupt, their firms and country decided to absorb the losses for a generation and stagnate.

Economically it was a very suboptimal approach but socially/morally I'm less confident it was the wrong call.

Arguing about the Plaza Accord is really a moot point. The real argument is that in the 80s, Japan-bashing was a real thing, just like the China-bashing today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_the...

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/06/us/resentment-of-japanese...

>"... and that was just fine."

No it was not. The US had taken whole bunch of steps to prevent this from happening and those steps were anything but "let's free market decide" and "compete on merits".

It is a real problem for any country or block. As soon as it looks like it threatens leading position of the US all the gloves come of. Obviously not specific to the US. Any other country would do the same given a chance.

What steps are you thinking of? Nothing like what is currently happening with China, I'm sure of that.

> If it's a democracy and reasonably friendly to the USA, it's not a big deal

Correction: If it accepts the stationing of U.S. troops and succumbs to U.S. financial policies, it's not a big deal

Japan and Germany have paid a huge price to demonstrate their friendship to the U.S. That was not 'just fine'

What does "succumb to US financial policies" even mean?

The situation has waxed and waned but in general West Germany and Japan at the government level have been pretty happy to have US troops stationed there while facing off against the Soviet Union (now Russia) and China. The Ukrainians and the Baltics would love to have some US troops stationed there right now.

It’s a shame that Americans don’t reap the maximal benefits from it, but why should the hegemon not take advantage of lesser states?

Ha! Do you remember the panic induced by a rising Japan in the late 80's and early 90's.

The fear of the "Red Sun Rising".

The fear that Japan was going to own most of the valuable real estate in America.

The forcing of Japanese car companies to onshore to protect American jobs.

Blaming of Japanese industrial policy as being unfair competition.

It was the collapse of the Japanese growth engine in the mid 90's that finally ended the American panic.

The U.S. and U.K. are a dual world power.

Whenever powers rise to threaten that duality there is a lot of hand-wringing in Washington.

> The U.S. and U.K. are a dual world power.

Wait, how did the UK get in there? Especially in this post-brexit century...

I remember those years pretty well. There was a lot of hand-wringing but not a lot of concrete action, very much unlike the situation with China now.