Abstract:
In Washington today, a familiar anxiety hangs in the air. American policymakers fear that China will leapfrog the United States in the technologies that matter most, including robotics and artificial intelligence. The United States has been here before, in the 1980s. Then, the specter wasn’t Beijing but Tokyo. Best-selling books such as Japan as Number One warned of Japanese dominance. The PBS series Frontline aired the documentary “Losing the War to Japan.” Silicon Valley looked spent after U.S. producers exited the market for memory chips such as DRAM.
Citation:
Frey, C. B. (2025), 'How America outcompeted Japan—and why that matters for the U.S. rivalry with China', Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/japan/how-america-outcompeted-japan