TikTok Could Have Been China’s Nintendo

Two events occurred in New York City in the fall of 1985 that would profoundly transform the relationship between the United States and Japan. In September, international negotiators meeting at Plaza Hotel agreed to a plan to depreciate the U.S. dollar in relation to the yen, addressing a trade imbalance that U.S. policymakers blamed for decimating American manufacturing. The following month, a Japanese product arrived for the first time in the U.S. to be sold in a handful of New York stores: the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Today, when China is...