Published on August 15, 2019.
This essay views the Trump administration’s U.S.-China trade war not as a temporary popularity-seeking measure for the midterm elections, but as a national-security policy.
Introducing economist Seiji Adachi’s analysis and comparing Trump’s approach with the Reagan administration’s trade policy toward Japan, it discusses the strategic aims of preventing U.S. high-tech technology from flowing to China, opening the Chinese market, increasing China’s economic dependence on the United States, and weakening the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party dictatorship.

August 15, 2019.
In other words, Trump is trying to prevent the outflow of high-tech technology and secure technological and economic superiority, while also weakening the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party dictatorship.
He is trying to weaken the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party dictatorship.
This is a chapter I published on August 14, 2018, under that title.
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
●The U.S.-China trade war is a security policy.
Regarding the Trump administration’s trade war, many in Japan tend to view it as a temporary popularity-seeking policy aimed at the midterm elections, but is that really the case?
Economist Seiji Adachi points out the following, suggesting that President Trump may be carrying out against China the kind of trade policy that the Reagan administration once carried out against Japan (Gendai Business Online, June 28).
“Japan at that time, in the 1980s, was also taking away America’s highly competitive industries and shaking America’s economic hegemony.
In a sense, it was only natural that Reagan, who won the presidential election by declaring that he would ‘bring back a strong America,’ would take countermeasures against that.
And the same applies to President Trump.
It is said that President Trump will soon take measures to prohibit Chinese companies from investing in U.S. high-tech companies.
This is a policy to prevent the technology of U.S. high-tech companies from flowing out to China through investment, and it seeks to maintain America’s superiority in high-tech industries.
If we consider the purpose of trade policy toward China by comparing it with President Reagan’s policy, I think it may be as follows.
① To force China to open its domestic market, and, through the purchase of American products and services including patents, make China enter an era of low growth caused by aging while keeping its economy highly dependent on the United States.
② To weaken the foundation of the current Chinese Communist Party one-party dictatorship by having the Chinese people come to know a ‘free capitalist society’ more deeply.”
In other words, Trump is trying to prevent the outflow of high-tech technology and secure technological and economic superiority, while also weakening the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party dictatorship.
This article continues.