The German-Great Britain Trade Rivalry in Comparison to the US-Japan Rivalry
Uploaded by Admin on Jan 22, 1999
The German-Great Britain trade rivalry like theU.S.-Japan trade rivalry involved a rising power cutting intothe trade of an already dominant trading power. There wereseveral causes of the German-Great Britain trade rivalryaccording to Hoffman. The first was German's industry's zealin procuring new contracts and expanding markets. They didthis by fulfilling contracts even if they were very small andconstantly trying to stay up with market demand. Second,Germans had a knowledge of languages that the English firmslacked. Third, German industry was aided by their government.In contrast Great Britain did not even supply consularassistance in helping develop markets in British colonies.Fourth, British trade was hurt by the conservatism of Britishmanufacturers who were unwilling to develop new markets orhold onto those it already possessed. These four factors arejust some of the factors that helped German industry grow andrival that of Great Britain.
These four factors are all very similar to theJapan-U.S. trade rivalry. Japan like Germany was able tocatch up to the U.S. because the U.S. was large and arrogantand refused to believe it could face competition from Japan.Like Britain, U.S. industry believed that they could holdonto markets and would not face competition. British and U.S.industry were startled by the fast rate of growth andindustrialization that allowed Germany and Japan to transformthemselves quickly into trading rivals. This fast rate ofgrowth also caused friction between both sets of countries.Relations between Germany and Great Britain were damaged asthey bickered over markets in particular colonies in Africa .This is similar to the friction between the U.S. and Japanunfair trading practices and closed markets.
Both the U.S. and Great Britain in response to losingmarkets toyed with the idea of economic nationalism andtariffs. As Britain lost markets to Germany many in Britainfelt that Britain should adopt tariffs on goods while othersknown as the free traders believed that a free tradewould benefit Britain by creating markets. This split betweenTariff Reformers and Free Traders is similar tothe split in the U.S. between those in favor of free tradeand those opposed to it. Germany's grab for new markets inthe 1890's through commercial treaties such as the 1891treaty with Austria-Hungry is similar to both the UnitedStates and Japan's free trade zones with neighboringcountries using treaties such as ASEAN and NAFTA.
The German-Great Britain trade rivalry is different thenthe U.S.-Japan trade rivalry because a large sector ofJapan's market for selling goods is the United States who itis competing against; this was not true of Germany. BothBritain...