In this webinar Nicola Nymalm will present her new book “From Japan ‘Problem’ to China ‘Threat’”, in which she explores parallels in the discursive constructions of the US-Japan and US-China economic relationships. Although much has been made of the novelty of former President Trump’s trade war on China, discourses regarding limited access for foreign firms and regulatory favouritism for American companies have been around well before China’s economy started growing. In fact, similar rhetoric could be heard already in the 1980’s by President Reagan concerning Japan. Nymalm’s work illustrates that the ‘new era’ in US-Chinese relations that scholars and policymakers have been announcing since the beginning of the Trump presidency was long in the making – it rests on longstanding discourses on the USA’s main economic competitor.
Puhujat
Nicola Nymalm joined the Swedish Defence University as Associate Senior Lecturer/Assistant Professor in War Studies in January 2020. Previously she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Her research interests include relations between ‘established’ and ‘emerging’ powers drawing from critical approaches to IR, IPE, security, and military studies. Nymalm is the author of From ‘Japan Problem’ to ‘China Threat’? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), and her previous work has appeared in journals such as International Political Sociology, International Studies Review, Review of International Studies and Journal of International Relations and Development. She received her PhD in Political Science/International Relations from Kiel University in Germany in July 2015.
Okko-Pekka Salmimies is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at FIIA. Before joining FIIA he was Ambassador for Team Finland at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. From 2013 to 2016 he worked as Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the OECD and UNESCO in Paris. His previous assignments have included among others Director of Trade Policy Unit, Director of Civil Society Unit, deputy head of Permanent Representation to the OECD in Paris, diplomatic adviser to Minister for Foreign Trade, Development and European Affairs, officer at the Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels and trade and transatlantic relations desk.