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

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, I chat with economic historian Andrew B. Liu of Villanova University about how to understand Trump's thinking on China and tariffs. Andy wrote about this in an excellent piece on N+1 called "Back to the 80s? Trump, Xi Jinping, and Tariffs." Check it out and then listen to the show!

3:59 – How the U.S.’s current trade anxieties echo those of the ‘80s

9:34 – How Cold War geopolitics shaped U.S.-Japan trade relations

18:23 – The lessons China learned from Japan’s experience and how it has shaped its recent economic strategy

21:03 – What Xi Jinping’s vision for the Chinese economy actually looks like

34:26 – Why China is favoring a more Ford-like model of industrial structure

41:28 – Michael Pettis’s ideas from Trade Wars Are Class Wars and points of critique

52:44 – The Trump administration’s use of tariffs

Paying It Forward: Viola Zhou’s reporting on Rest of World (especially her piece on Foxconn in India) and Dong Yige

Recommendations:

Andrew: Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Substack for vegan modern Cantonese recipes

Kaiser: The Substack of the Carter Center’s U.S.-China Perception Monitor; and the essay “The new frontline: The US-China battle for control of global networks” on the Transnational Institute website

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China.
0:13.0	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.
0:25.3	Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we
0:31.2	think and talk about China. I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you this week from Madison, Wisconsin.
0:36.6	Cynica is supported this year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, right here, a national resource center for the study of East Asia.
0:46.2	They put on a great talk yesterday by Mark Seidel, who I was privileged enough to go and see.
0:51.8	He'll be joining us on the show soon.
0:54.1	Anyway, the Cynica podcast will remain free, but if you work for an organization that believes
0:58.1	in what I'm doing with the show, please consider lending your support.
1:01.1	You can get me, as always, at CinecaPod at gmail.com.
1:05.7	And listeners, please support my work at www.cenapodcast.com.
1:11.0	Become a subscriber and enjoy, in addition to the podcast, the complete transcript of the show, essays from me, as well as writings and podcasts from some of your favorite China-focused colonists and commentators.
1:23.3	We've got offerings like the China Global South podcast from Eric Kobeson,-Road, James Carter's This Week in China's History, Paul French's Ultimate China Bookshelf, Andrew Methman's Cynica, Chinese phrase of the week, and more.
1:38.0	Make sure to check out the latest series from our friends at Johns Hopkins Seiss, studying China in the absence of access, which will continue
1:45.5	to run on the podcast feed and on the newsletter across the next few months.
1:50.7	So not long ago, the well-known economist Michael Pettis, who teaches at Peking University,
1:57.7	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 to
2:05.1	disagreement. Anyway, Michael Pettus wrote on Twitter, if you want to understand the effects
2:09.9	of trade intervention, it's okay to ask economic historians, but never ask economists.
2:15.7	Well, I'm taking his advice today,
2:17.9	and I'm talking about trade intervention
2:20.1	to a bona fide economic historian.
	...

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