[joshbaptiste]

As a sovereign nation rises in power you'll notice how it slowly starts losing favor from USA

[roca]

If it's a democracy and reasonably friendly to the USA, it's not a big deal. In the 1990s everyone thought Japan was going to be the next superpower and that was just fine.

[tw1984]

are you kidding? the US forced Japan to sign the plaza accord effectively ending Japan's rise. that was followed by 30 years close to zero economic growth.

you are not mature enough to discuss such topic if you believe the US will be happy to be taken over by some democratic friends.

[FpUser]

>"... and that was just fine."

No it was not. The US had taken whole bunch of steps to prevent this from happening and those steps were anything but "let's free market decide" and "compete on merits".

It is a real problem for any country or block. As soon as it looks like it threatens leading position of the US all the gloves come of. Obviously not specific to the US. Any other country would do the same given a chance.

[suraci]

> If it's a democracy and reasonably friendly to the USA, it's not a big deal

Correction: If it accepts the stationing of U.S. troops and succumbs to U.S. financial policies, it's not a big deal

Japan and Germany have paid a huge price to demonstrate their friendship to the U.S. That was not 'just fine'

[ijidak]

Ha! Do you remember the panic induced by a rising Japan in the late 80's and early 90's.

The fear of the "Red Sun Rising".

The fear that Japan was going to own most of the valuable real estate in America.

The forcing of Japanese car companies to onshore to protect American jobs.

Blaming of Japanese industrial policy as being unfair competition.

It was the collapse of the Japanese growth engine in the mid 90's that finally ended the American panic.

The U.S. and U.K. are a dual world power.

Whenever powers rise to threaten that duality there is a lot of hand-wringing in Washington.