Transcript: Back to the 80s: For Trump, is China the New Japan? with Andy Liu

Below is a complete transcript of the episode. Thanks to CadreScripts for their great work, to Lili Shoup for checking and formatting, and to Zhou Keya for the image! Listen in the embedded player above.

Kaiser Kuo: Welcome to the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we’ll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends that can help us better understand what’s happening in China’s politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I’m Kaiser Kuo, coming to you this week from Madison, Wisconsin.

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So, not long ago, the well-known economist Michael Pettis, who teaches at Peking University and actually was on this show a few years ago to talk about Beijing’s rock scene — a subject on which, alas, we have found ourselves in quite profound disagreement — anyway, Michael Pettis wrote on Twitter, “If you want to understand the effects of trade intervention, it’s okay to ask economic historians, but never ask economists.” Well, I’m taking his advice today, and I’m talking about trade intervention to a bona fide economic historian. I’m delighted to welcome back Andrew B. Liu, Associate Professor of History at Villanova University in Philadelphia. Andrew specializes in modern China, East and South Asia, and the history of capitalism and political economy. His acclaimed book, Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India, published by Yale, offers a compelling analysis of the intertwined economic histories of these two nations through the very interesting lens of the tea industry. Regular listeners might recall Andy’s previous appearance on Sinica, where we discussed his insightful essay in n+1 magazine titled “Lab Leak Theory and the Asiatic Form.” In that piece, he examined how these racialized stereotypes have really shaped American discourse on COVID-19 origins, contrasting the Oriental and Asiatic modes of thought.

Today, Andrew joins us to delve into his latest essay in n+1 called, “Back to the ’80s?”, where he explores the resurgence of 1980s-style trade rhetoric in the U.S. and its implications for China’s economic strategy. Like all of his work, it’s both erudite and very accessible. So, listeners are enjoined to hit pause and read that piece — link in the show notes — before we plunge ahead. But meanwhile, Andy Liu, welcome back to Sinica, man.

Andy Liu: Yeah, thanks a lot, Kaiser. It’s funny to call me a bona fide economic historian. The field is mostly historians who wish they were economists, and a few economists who wish they’re historians, so it’s nice to hear Michael Pettis go the other way for once.

Kaiser: Yeah, for sure. I mean, some of my favorite public intellectuals these days are economic historians. I mean, Adam Tooze, right? You’re in good company.

So, Andy, in your recent piece of n+1, “Back to the ’80s?“, I got to say it feels incredibly timely given where we are today. I mean, just two weeks ago, Trump took office and already tariffs, not surprisingly, dominate the conversation. So, last week, just for people who’ve been living in a damn cave, he threatened tariffs on Colombian goods after a deportation dispute. Then, ostensibly over the fentanyl thing, he announced tariffs of a hefty 25% on both Mexico and Canada before quite abruptly putting them on pause for 30 days because Claudia Scheinbaum and Justin Trudeau just basically said, “Hey, let’s just tell him stuff that we’ve already done." Anyway…

Andrew: You want to fact-check? Yeah.

Kaiser: Yeah, I know. I digress here. But not so far, anyway, he hasn’t paused them for China. He put 10% tariffs on all Chinese goods, on, still, not the 60% he threatened on the campaign trail, but these are, of course, on top of tariffs he’d already imposed in the first term and which the Biden administration never saw its way to removing. He’s also removed, apparently, the de minimis exception for partial goods that are under $800 in value. And so, we just saw this abrupt, the U.S. Postal Service stopped all parcel shipments and then started them again. It’s just bizarre, get used to the complete whiplash because this is a new era.

But anyway, I mean, I’ve gone pretty far from what I wanted to ask you. For those who remember the 1980s when it was Japan and not China who was the great economic boogeyman in Washington, this all feels like deja vu. And Andy, that’s where your essay really starts. But you argue that we should think carefully, not just about the parallels between now and that period, but also about the important differences, and we’ll definitely get there. But let’s start with parallels. What are the key ways in which the U.S.’s trade anxieties today echo those of the ’80s? I mean, it’s interesting that these same anxieties seem to be embodied in the very person of Trump. I mean, your piece quotes an historian named Jennifer Miller, who argues that Japan actually provided the template for Trump’s views on China. So, what are the implications of that? And then we’ll get into where the comparison breaks down, but first, similarities.

Andrew: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I mean, when I set up to write the piece, I was thinking about what is there to say at this point about Trump and China and all that. One thing I had known for a while, I’d be curious how much you or your audience knows about this, but for a while now, I’ve been thinking about how much it echoed the ’80s with Japan, and how you could take these speeches from Japan, do like a Ctrl F word search, replace with “China,” and it would basically come out, you know, verbatim, better than AI probably. But I’m also kind of surprised that a lot of people didn’t know this. And when I was trying to teach it or recommend something, there’s some stuff out there, but I actually kind of thought there’s a lot more that could be said about it.

So, I started with the premise of this famous clip on YouTube where Oprah asks Trump, “Would you want to run for president?” And he says, “No.” And that blows undergrads’ minds. But also that clip is about Japan. He’s complaining about Japan dumping stuff — TV, steel, but primarily cars, right? And I was born in ’83, so I have a vague memory of this. I’m sure others have a stronger memory of how much this rise of a gigantic, menacing or miraculous Japan was in the collective consciousness of the country, of the United States and the world in the ’80s into the ’90s. And so at the time, Trump… I mean, Japan had run a trade surplus with U.S., starting in the ’60s, but really in the ’70s and ’80s. And cars were this big symbol, as they are today with EVs a little bit, right? I mean, these days it’s like it’s new commodity or new sector every year, it seems like. But EVs is one of them.