World Trade Organization (WTO) rules do not apply to China.
Intellectual property violations and dumping exports continue unabated.
Foreign companies are subjected to investment restrictions and forced technology transfers.
If firms attempt to withdraw from China, they are stripped of everything.
Suddenly, overseas remittances are blocked.
Discretion by party officials takes precedence, leaving no room for fair trials.
Financial markets are not being deregulated; rather, controls are only being strengthened.
As a result, bubble lending such as real estate development is repeated, and the swelling debts of companies and local governments show no sign of stopping.

2017-04-23
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The British Financial Times and the American The Wall Street Journal, which reflect the interests of international financial markets, have warned that a U.S.–China trade war would cause major market turmoil.
However, Japan, which confronts China directly in Asia, cannot simply echo Western voices.
The Xi administration has put forward the “Belt and Road” initiative, seeking to connect land and maritime infrastructure across Asia directly to Beijing and turn the region into a Chinese economic sphere.
Because infrastructure can be diverted for military use, this overlaps with military expansion policies, just like China’s maritime advance into the South China Sea.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which opened in Beijing in early 2016, serves as the vanguard of this strategy.
Taking advantage of the fact that exchange-rate manipulation linked to the U.S. dollar has been tacitly tolerated by the United States, the AIIB is likely to provide infrastructure financing using the renminbi issued by the People’s Bank of China.
At the U.S.–China summit, Xi Jinping strongly urged Donald Trump to have the United States join the AIIB.
Xi believed that if Trump agreed, the AIIB would be able to solidify its position in international financial markets.
Between Japan and the United States, the first meeting of the economic dialogue agreed upon at the February summit was held on the 18th.
What was decided were three pillars—trade and investment rules, economic and fiscal policy, and specific sectors—but their contents were empty.
U.S. representative Mike Pence suggested concluding a bilateral trade agreement, but this does not align with Japan’s commitment to multilateral agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
If things continue this way, the so-called “dialogue” could end up driving Japan and the United States apart.
Above all, a core principle is needed.
That core is China.
The issues at hand are not limited to the AIIB.
World Trade Organization (WTO) rules do not apply to China.
Intellectual property violations and dumping exports continue unabated.
Foreign companies are subjected to investment restrictions and forced technology transfers.
If firms attempt to withdraw from China, they are stripped of everything.
Suddenly, overseas remittances are blocked.
Discretion by party officials takes precedence, leaving no room for fair trials.
Financial markets are not being deregulated; rather, controls are only being strengthened.
As a result, bubble lending such as real estate development is repeated, and the swelling debts of companies and local governments show no sign of stopping.
These issues alone would be enough to fill the internal substance of the pillars of U.S.–Japan dialogue.
To be continued.