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I NTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY,AUGUST 5, 2019
UNFAMILIAR FACES
STARS SKIP U.S.
BASKETBALL TEAM
PAGE 12| SPORTSTHINGS UNSAID
WEALTH: A TOPIC
FAMILIES AVOID
PAGE 8| BUSINESSTHE POST-PLASTIC FUTURE
BUILDING A WORLD
FROM ALGAE AND YEAST
PAGE 14| CULTUREIn purely competitive terms, Megan
Rapinoe and the United States national
women’s soccer team achieved a mon-
umental victory at this summer’s
World Cup — the squad was never
seriously threatened.
Yet what was happening off the field
was perhaps even more significant.
Rapinoe, one of the captains, and her
teammates swept through the tourna-
ment while in the midst of suing their
country’s soccer federation over gen-
der discrimination; while taking on
President Trump as a symbolic oppo-
nent after it was revealed that Rapinoe
said, before the games began, using
colorful language, that she woulddecline a White House visit should the
team win (in reply, Trump ramped up
the pressure by tweeting, essentially,
put up or shut up); and while compet-
ing against the strongest group of
women’s teams ever assembled.
Rapinoe herself was awarded the
tournament’s Golden Boot as its top
goal-scorer and the Golden Ball as its
best player, becoming an activist-
athlete icon in the process. “For girls
now, it’s amazing to see different types
of women come to power,” Rapinoe,
who recently signed a book deal with
Penguin, says. “I feel like I got there
from the outside because I’m an ath-
lete.” She adds, grinning: “And now
people are like, ‘Oh, gosh, she’s in here
and we can’t get her out.’”
This interview has been edited and
condensed from two conversations.How much do you think your being
who you are — an unabashedly out gay
woman — contributed to the team’s
feeling like such a lightning rod during
the World Cup? If it had been another
R APINOE, PAGE 2Megan Rapinoe has a few things to say
FROM THE MAGAZINE‘We’re not just here
to sit in the glass case
for you to look at’BY DAVID MARCHESEMegan Rapinoe, who described herself as “a pink-haired, unapologetically flaming gay
lesbian,” helped lead the United States to victory at the Women’s World Cup.MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERSThe New York Times publishes opinion
from a wide range of perspectives in
hopes of promoting constructive debate
about consequential questions.As China considers ways to retaliate
against the mounting tariffs from Presi-
dent Trump, it has increasingly ac-
knowledged that it must first address its
main obstacle to punching back: its own
slumping economy.
Chinese officials have vowed to re-
spond with measures of their own if Mr.
Trump follows through on his threat to
put 10 percent tariffs on $300 billion in
Chinese imports. If Mr. Trump enacts
the tariffs next month, as he said he
would do on Thursday, the costs would
rise for nearly everything China ships to
the United States, items as varied as
shoes, car parts and the latest gadgets.
On Friday, China’s Ministry of Com-
merce, which is heavily involved in the
country’s trade policy, said it would
“take necessary countermeasures to
resolutely defend the core interests of
the country and the fundamental inter-
ests of the people.”
The question is how it can defend it-
self. China’s imports from the United
States are only a fraction of the trade go-
ing the other way, so it cannot match
Washington tariff for tariff. Much of that
trade consists of agricultural goods such
as soybeans, as well as specialized prod-
ucts like Boeing jetliners or the Ameri-
can-made microchips for the smart-
phones China makes.
There are several things China could
do. It could call for a boycott of American
goods or stop buying Boeing planes. It
could devalue its currency, which would
in effect partially nullify American tar-
iffs. It could make life much harder for
American businesses and executives in
China, or it could exercise its power over
key parts of the global supply chain, like
its dominance over key manufacturing
minerals called rare earths.
Some investors on Friday signaled
that they expect at least one of those
moves. China’s currency, the renminbi,
fell to its weakest point so far this year.
Shares of rare earths companies rose,
while Boeing’s shares fell more than the
broader market on Thursday.
But each of these measures has draw-
backs. Perhaps the biggest among them
is that China’s economy is growing at its
slowest pace in 27 years. Many of the ar-
rows Beijing has in its quiver could rico-
chet and hit its own factories and work-
ers.
Chinese officials have signaled in re-
cent weeks that tackling sluggish
growth is a necessity for prevailing in
the trade war, especially as it looks to
drag on for months or perhaps years.
That prospect was made clearer still to
Chinese leaders on Thursday, as Mr.
T RADE, PAGE 8China finds
its hands
tied on trade
retaliation
BEIJINGAmid a sluggish economy,
moves against American
goods could hurt BeijingBY ALEXANDRA STEVENSON
Donald Trump has pursued two main
economic policies. On taxes, he has
been an orthodox Republican, pushing
through big tax cuts for corporations
and the wealthy, which his administra-
tion promised would lead to a huge
surge in business investment. On
trade, he has broken with his party’s
free(ish) trade policies, imposing large
tariffs that he promised would lead to a
revival of U.S. manufacturing.
Last Wednesday, the Federal Re-
serve cut interest rates, even though
the unemployment rate is low and
overall economic growth remains
decent, though not
great. According to
Jay Powell, the Fed’s
chairman, the goal
was to take out some
insurance against
worrying hints of a
future slowdown —
in particular, weak-
ness in business
investment, which fell in the most
recent quarter, and manufacturing,
which has been declining since the
beginning of the year.
Obviously Powell couldn’t say in so
many words that Trumponomics has
been a big flop, but that was the sub-
text of his remarks. And Trump’s fran-
tic efforts to bully the Fed into bigger
cuts are an implicit admission of the
same thing.
To be fair, the economy remains
pretty strong, which isn’t really a
surprise given the G.O.P.’s willingness
to run huge budget deficits as long as
Democrats don’t hold the White House.
As I wrote three days after the 2016
election — after the shock had worn off
— “It’s at least possible that bigger
budget deficits will, if anything,
strengthen the economy briefly.” And
that’s pretty much what happened:
There was a bit of a bump in 2018, but
at this point we’ve basically returned
to pre-Trump rates of growth.
But why has Trumponomics failed to
deliver much besides trillion-dollar
budget deficits? The answer is that
both the tax cuts and the trade war
were based on false views about how
the world works.
Republican faith in the magic of tax
cuts — and, correspondingly, belief
that tax increases will doom the econ-
omy — is the ultimate policy zombie, aThe big flop
of Trumpian
economics
OPINIONNeither of the
president’s
main policies,
tax cuts and
tariffs, are
working.K RUGMAN, PAGE 11Paul Krugman
The bride wore a birthday cake of a
dress, with a scalloped-edge bodice and
a large hoop skirt. A veil sprouted from
her black bob. Moments before the wed-
ding began, she stood quietly on a stair-
case, waiting to descend to the ceremo-
n y.
“Wow,” she thought. “I’m really doing
this.”
This was no conventional wedding to
join two people in matrimony. Instead, a
group of nearly 30 friends gathered in a
banquet room in one of Tokyo’s most
fashionable districts last year to witness
Sanae Hanaoka, 31, as she performed a
public declaration of her love — for her
single self.
“I wanted to figure out how to live on
my own,” Ms. Hanaoka told the group,
standing alone on a stage as she
thanked them for attending her solo
wedding. “I want to rely on my own
strength.”
Not so long ago, Japanese women
who remained unmarried after the ageof 25 were referred to as “Christmas
cake,” a slur comparing them to old holi-
day pastries that cannot be sold after
Dec. 25.
Today, such outright insults have
faded as a growing number of Japanese
women are postponing or forgoing mar-
riage, rejecting the traditional path that
leads to what many now regard as a life
of domestic drudgery.
The percentage of women who work
in Japan is higher than ever, yet cultural
norms have not caught up: Japanese
wives and mothers are still typically ex-
pected to bear the brunt of the house-
work, child care and help for their aging
relatives, a factor that stymies many of
their careers.
Fed up with the double standard, Jap-
anese women are increasingly opting
out of marriage altogether, focusing on
their work and newfound freedoms, but
also alarming politicians preoccupied
with trying to reverse Japan’s declining
population.
As recently as the mid-1990s, only one
in 20 women in Japan had never been
married by the time they turned 50, ac-
cording to government census figures.
But by 2015, the most recent year for
which statistics are available, that had
changed drastically, with one in seven
women remaining unmarried by that
age. And for women aged 35 to 39, the
percentage was even higher: Nearly a
quarter had never been married, com-pared with only about 10 percent two
decades earlier.
The change is so striking that a grow-
ing number of businesses now cater to
singles, and to single women in particu-
lar. There are single karaoke salons fea-
turing women-only zones, restaurants
designed for solo diners, and apartment
complexes that target women looking to
buy or rent homes on their own. Travelcompanies book tours for single women,
and photo studios offer sessions in
which women can don wedding dresses
and pose for solo bridal portraits.
“I thought, ‘If I get married, I will just
have to do more housework,’ ” said
Kayoko Masuda, 49, a single cartoonist
who stopped by to croon in private at a
One Kara solo karaoke salon in Tokyo. AKanae Ito, 25 and single, preparing for her solo bridal portraits. Some photo studios offer sessions in which single women can don wedding dresses and pose for pictures.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREA DICENZO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESRejecting marriage, freely
A train in Tokyo with a women-only section that is packed during rush hour. Many
businesses in Japan now cater to single people, and to single women in particular.TOKYOIn Japan, more women
are saying no to wedded
life and the burden it bringsBY MOTOKO RICHJAPAN, PAGE 4Issue Number
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