Following the release of the new Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot, DeepSeek, Professor Peter Bloom, from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, argued that, with its embrace of open-source AI, DeepSeek had “caused a geopolitical earthquake”, adding that, “What makes DeepSeek particularly disruptive is its ability to achieve cutting-edge performance while reducing computing costs — an area where US firms have struggled due to their dependence on training models that demand very expensive processing hardware.”
At about the same time, the BBC described DeepSeek as “the Chinese AI app that has the world talking”.
Forty years ago, Japan was the world’s paramount rising economic star. After its defeat in World War II, a compelling whole of government and educated-society cooperation approach financed and created an exceptional manufacturing-led recovery. Japan successfully revolutionized the way motor vehicles were built, for example, delivering products that performed well and were also well-equipped, super reliable, frugal, and an excellent value for the money. Similar patterns emerged with respect to the entire range of Japanese products, including cameras, audio-visual goods, and advanced optical and high-tech products.
By this time, Japan’s leading semiconductor companies, including Toshiba, NEC and Hitachi, had also, according to one report, “taken a lead over American tech firms such as Intel and Fairchild Semiconductors to become the leading chipmakers in the world”.
For the United States, especially, this was too much: The rise of Japan, on its way to overtaking the US as the world’s largest economy, had to be contained. Due significantly to US internal policymaking during the Ronald Reagan era, the US dollar had been rising in value. Eventually, America, under the Plaza Accord (named after a New York hotel), compelled key US trading partners Japan, Germany, France and the UK to intervene in currency markets to ensure that their currencies appreciated against the US dollar — in effect, depreciating the US dollar to enhance the global competitiveness of the American economy.
Even more striking was the US scheme to shut down Japan’s semiconductor strength. Toshiba, at this time remarkably successful, was singled out for a savage multipronged attack — to teach the company a lesson and as a stark warning to other Japanese firms. Washington argued that Toshiba had sold some critical technology, against its clear wishes, to the Soviet Union. Heavy sanctions were imposed on Toshiba. New 100 percent import duties were applied. Certain key American companies stopped dealing with Toshiba. According to one expert commentator, Hiroo Kinoshita, “This was the start of the decline for Japan’s semiconductor industry.” US lawmakers claimed they were fighting “treachery”, as they used sledgehammers to smash a Toshiba stereo system, on the grounds of the Capitol, for media cameras.
Toshiba almost immediately responded by kowtowing, taking full-page advertisements in dozens of US papers apologizing to the American public. Unsurprisingly, these achieved nothing. Toshiba today is a pale imitation of its former self. And the compliant Japanese semiconductor industry today no longer poses a threat to the US. Meanwhile, it is widely agreed that the forced revaluation of the Japanese yen, under the Plaza Accord, played a significant part in prompting local measures that led to the containment of Japan’s rising economy and Japan’s “lost decades” of economic development.
More than a few thoughtful people in Japan must be wondering, as they look at the DeepSeek phenomenon, what Japan’s future might have been had it enjoyed sufficient autonomy in the 1980s (such as China enjoys today) to see off that intense American intimidation, thus allowing it to make decisions guided by Japan’s own national interest.
Japanese sovereignty was then (and still is) hamstrung by the decisive Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan of 1960, which replaced an earlier version from 1951. The first version, which arose from the formal termination of World War II in Asia, left Japan as a heavily garrisoned American tributary state. The 1960 treaty rewound some of the extraordinary powers enjoyed by the US (for example allowing the US military to intervene in Japanese domestic disputes) — but it still leaves the US as Japan’s formidable managing partner.
One definition of “convergence theory” argues: “As nations move from the early stages of industrialization toward becoming fully industrialized, they begin to resemble other industrialized societies in terms of societal norms and technology. The characteristics of these nations effectively converge. Ultimately, this could lead to a unified global culture if nothing impedes the process.”
Under this American formulated convergence concept, it was once hoped that China would be steadily drawn toward adopting Western political precepts as it advanced economically. Both former US president Bill Clinton and former British prime minister Tony Blair thought this would happen.
Nothing as formal and constraining as Japan’s 1960 security treaty was envisaged for China. But a softer version, in which it was linked into accepting a US-Western dominated world order, was. Japan’s setback confirms why it is fortunate — for China and the world — that this did not happen.
The author is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
