Originally published on June 24, 2019.
From the perspective that China stands behind the North Korean nuclear problem, this essay examines the Trump administration’s China and North Korea strategy through the framework of DIME: diplomacy, intelligence, military, and economy.
Centering on Ezaki Michio’s argument and Peter Navarro’s analysis, it criticizes both the U.S. strategic shift that redefined China from a “quasi-ally” to a “potential enemy” and the reporting posture of Japanese media, including NHK.

2019-06-24
As I watched, convinced that it was undoubtedly China that was manipulating those people in the anti-Trump camp, I thought to myself that the people controlling NHK could not even arrive at such a kindergarten-level inference.

This is a chapter I originally published on 2018-10-17 under the title, “Why have negotiations with North Korea continued to fail. We in the U.S. military believe the reason is that negotiations were left to the State Department, which prioritized a negotiated solution.”
When the October 10 issue of the monthly magazine Voice came out, priced at 780 yen, I hesitated once at the bookstore before buying it.
That was because the current issue of Seiron had put together a 45th anniversary special issue and was filled with essays that absolutely had to be read.
Later, I bought Voice as well, thinking that of course it too would contain essays that had to be read.
As I wrote before, the current students and alumni of Kyushu University ought to feel gratitude and pride that Ezaki Michio, who continues to do very fine work, is a graduate of Kyushu University, and indeed he has continued to do the work that must be done as a man of public discourse.
Special feature, U.S.-China clash, Japan’s decision.
A consumption tax cut is the best move.
The trade war is a great opportunity for Japan.
The Trump administration’s “DIME” strategy.
“When will the Trump administration launch bombing strikes on North Korea.”
That was the sort of thing newspapers and the mass media were making noise about day after day last year amid the North Korea crisis.
When I asked a former U.S. military official whom I met in Hawaii this question, he gave a wry smile and answered as follows.
“If you look only at North Korea, you will misjudge the situation. At present, in the Asia-Pacific region, we are facing two major threats. In the short term, North Korea. In the long term, China’s willingness to use military power to secure its own interests.”
Perhaps I had looked puzzled.
He continued.
“In order to stop North Korea’s nuclear development, the international community and the United States have, over these past twenty-odd years, reached agreements five times to halt that development, and all five times they were deceived. Why have negotiations with North Korea failed. We in the U.S. military believe the reason is that negotiations were left to the State Department, which prioritized a negotiated solution, and that no attempt was made to restrain China, which stands behind North Korea.”
“Then are you saying that in order to resolve the North Korean nuclear missile issue as well, it is important to restrain China.”
Even as I asked that question, inwardly I wondered how exactly the Trump administration intended to restrain China.
Then he continued.
“The threat from North Korea can be said to be military alone. Because it has no economic power, it is not so difficult compared with China. China has economic power, so while military matters are important with respect to China, it is even more important to restrain China in the spheres of diplomacy, intelligence, and the economy.”
I had not expected economics to come up from a former military man, but his point was that since China, including through its Belt and Road Initiative, has advanced into the Asia-Pacific in coordination with economics, intelligence, and diplomacy, we cannot think about a China strategy in purely military terms.
In this way, thinking strategically in the four fields of Diplomacy, Intelligence, Military, and Economy is referred to by the acronym “DIME.”
“Could you explain that a little more fully.”
When I asked that, he used the “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea as an example and explained in detail how the U.S. military thinks about the diplomatic, intelligence, and economic effects of those operations, but because it concerned delicate matters, I will not write about that here.
What I want you to understand is that U.S. military intelligence personnel are trying to deal with North Korea and China not only through military means, but by combining economics and intelligence as well.
“Is there a book that explains DIME in detail.”
When I asked this, he replied as follows.
“We also cooperated in its writing, but you would do well to read If the United States and China Were to Go to War, written by Professor Peter Navarro of the University of California, translated into Japanese and published by Bungeishunju. I hear that inside the administration there is now an intense power struggle to get Professor Navarro’s strategy, as an adviser on the Trump administration’s trade policy, adopted by the administration.”
From “quasi-ally” to “potential enemy.”
In the U.S. presidential election held from 2015 to 2016, Trump, then the Republican candidate, repeatedly said the following to the voters.
“The reason the United States fell into economic decline is that China destroyed American manufacturing through unfair dumping exports and stole jobs. Moreover, the establishment figures in both the Democratic and Republican parties, who receive vast donations from multinational corporations profiting from China’s unfair exports, have turned a blind eye to it. Let us take political leadership back from the establishment and restore America as a great nation once again. Make America Great Again.”
The other day, NHK’s Watch 9 and similar programs did not report at all the meaning of the fact that this was the slogan Trump officially announced at a rally attended by tens of thousands of supporters when declaring his candidacy for president. What they did report was interviews with the small number of anti-Trump demonstrators gathered outside the venue. Worse still, as usual, NHK reported that Trump was dividing America. As I watched, convinced that it was undoubtedly China that was manipulating those people in the anti-Trump camp, I thought to myself that the people controlling NHK could not even arrive at such a kindergarten-level inference. Or do they know and choose not to report it. NHK is unmistakably an organization under the influence operations of the intelligence agencies of China and the Korean Peninsula.
At the same time, Make America Great Again also proved that Ezaki Michio had conveyed the truth perfectly.
In Japan, many people lightly think that Trump’s remarks during the election were mere lip service, but in fact this way of thinking leads directly to the current U.S.-China trade war.
The theoretical background to Trump’s statements lies in Professor Navarro’s If the United States and China Were to Go to War, and Chapter 42 states the following.
“1. China relies on numerous unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation, illegal export subsidies, intellectual property theft, and the protection of its domestic market in order to strengthen its manufacturing base and promote export-led economic growth.
2. Economic growth and a strong manufacturing base have given China abundant resources for strengthening and modernizing its military power.
3. Wielding its superior economic power as a weapon, China has intimidated neighboring Asian countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam on a variety of issues, including trade and territorial disputes.
4. Since China joined the WTO in 2001 and was able to enter the U.S. market freely, the United States has lost more than 70,000 manufacturing plants, and its rate of economic growth has shrunk to less than half.
5. Due to slowing economic growth and the weakening of the manufacturing base, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the United States to maintain a military force of sufficient scale and quality both to ensure its own national security and to fulfill its treaty obligations to its Asian allies.”
China is the very threat in the Asia-Pacific, and the source of that threat is the economic power China built through unfair trade.
Therefore, reducing that economic power is itself what protects both the national interests of the United States and its allies.
Against the background of Professor Navarro’s argument, in the National Security Strategy released on December 18 of last year, the Trump administration explicitly condemned China and Russia as “revisionist powers” that seek to change the status quo by force, that is, powers seeking to transform the world into one diametrically opposed to American values and interests.
Some people mistakenly think that U.S.-China “cooperation” had continued all along, but it was only after President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972 that the United States entered into a cooperative relationship with the Chinese Communist government.
At that time it was the era of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, and in order to counter the Soviet threat, the Nixon administration deliberately built a cooperative relationship with China, a communist state.
It was precisely because this U.S.-China cooperation had been established that Japanese companies, too, were able to advance into China with peace of mind.
Since then, the United States had tried to encourage democratization by supporting China’s economic development, but China not only dismantled American manufacturing through unfair trade practices, it also advanced military expansion, built military bases in the South China Sea, and came to behave with arrogance in the East China Sea, including around the Senkaku Islands.
The Trump administration, thinking in those terms, shifted China’s strategic position for the first time in 45 years from a “quasi-ally” to a “potential enemy.”