Lu Ming started the discussion by asking whether Fukunari Kimura, the author, viewed the current U.S.–China conflict as similar to or different from the U.S. conflict with Japan in the 1980s. Kimura responded that they are different because of two factors: (1) China's exceptional growth compared with Japan; and (2) the fact that Japan had to consider the implications of its economic policies for its national security policies since Japan was tied to the U.S. umbrella, whereas China is free to decide its trade policies from a pure economic perspective.
Prema-chandra Athukorala cautioned that Kimura's support of free trade agreements (FTAs) should be preceded by investigations of whether they are worth the effort. More broadly, Athukorala argued that only 30 percent of world trade is in FTAs even though 70 percent of countries have FTAs. In response, Kimura argued that the small share of trade routed through FTAs is not...