Posted on 07/25/2023 3:40:49 AM PDT by FarCenter
Japan’s new restrictions on exports of advanced semiconductor production equipment went into effect on Sunday. Drawn up at the instigation of the United States and formally announced three months ago, they are couched in broad terms but are aimed primarily at China.
At this stage, it is difficult to predict their impact on Japanese equipment makers or Japan-China relations, but a group of Japanese politicians are already questioning the wisdom of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s seeming eagerness to side with the US in a trade war with China.
These politicians are followers of Ishibashi Tanzan, a journalist-turned-politician who advocated for an independent foreign policy and good relations with the People’s Republic of China in the years after World War II.
Individual export licenses are now required to export 23 specific types of semiconductor production equipment, including cleaning (three items), deposition (11 items), annealing (one item), lithography (four items), etching (three items) and inspection (one item).
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In a worst-case scenario, the impact could be quite severe, putting billions of dollars’ worth of sales at risk and inviting retaliation in the form of Chinese restrictions on exports of critical materials such as gallium nitride, germanium and rare-earth metals.
According to the International Trade Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan accounted for 30% of China’s imports of semiconductor production equipment in 2022. In the fiscal year ending March 2023, 23% of Tokyo Electron’s sales were made in China. Japan’s total trade with China in 2022 was 61% greater than its total trade with the US. There is a lot to lose.
This has not escaped the attention of the Ishibashi Tanzan Study Group, a cross-party association of Diet members founded to discuss policies that promote Japan’s interests as a trading nation and do not simply follow those of the US.
The group is led by Iwaya Takeshi, a former minister of defense from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Shinohara Takashi from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party, and Furukawa Motohisa from the Democratic Party for the People.
Furukawa Yoshihisa, a former minister of justice from the LDP, serves as chief secretary. He was quoted by Toyo Keizai (The Oriental Economist) as saying, “Tanzan emphasized that ‘just following America is not good for either Japan or America. We will partner with America, but we will not subordinate ourselves to America.'”
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Ishibashi died in 1973, but his ideas lived on as an alternative to the US-centric policies of successive LDP governments. They are enjoying a resurgence now due to concerns about the reliability of the US generated by former president Donald Trump, and the rise of protectionism and escalation of tensions with China under President Joe Biden.
Japan still lackeys of USA after all these years .
“concerns about the reliability of the US generated by former president Donald Trump”
Yeah, they just had to go there.
Blame Trump.
As I recall Japanese air raid sirens were going off regularly until Trump managed a new relationship with North Korean leader that hugely deescalated the nuclear threat and stopped the missile launches.
Japan has a Deep State, too.
Hehe...most definitely .
And they’ll continue due to the Marshall plan and inclusion into the G7.
Rightfully so!
I am sure they do.
I am also sure China has been hard at work "capturing the elite" in Japan, just as they have in China.
Should be: just as they have in the USA.
BRICS now provide 31.5% of world GDP , with further projected growth . The G7 provide about 1% less . Just a matter of time before Japan leaves the G7 and joins BRICS+ . Japan must work towards a friendly co-existence with its neighbors , China , and I have no doubt they eventually will . The future is not the G7 countries .
Most of the demise of the G7 is rooted in the obamian death to America agenda which encompassed bidenomics, the hobbling and destruction of the American economy.
The brics countries? Most are Marxist and as marxists they are technological parasites of the west. Have been for the last 100 years and for the next 100 years.
Marxism never developed the necessary infrastructure forthe creation of ideas the inventions and their development all which require capital. Marx failed to understand capital other than the blind redistribution of those who had capital to those who didn’t.
For that very reason the west has a huge leg up irrespective of the Marxist muslim obamian death to America agenda.
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