The seikei bunri principles for engaging with China economically are giving way to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s new “economic realist” diplomacy….reports Asian Lite News
The Japanese government has become concerned about its economic dependency on China amid intensifying US-China strategic competition, China’s track record of economic coercion and its long-term objectives to secure its own “core interests”, Asia Times reported.
Japan is now developing economic relations with China through a policy that separates politics and economics or seikei bunri.
The seikei bunri principles for engaging with China economically are giving way to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s new “economic realist” diplomacy.
Policy approaches to address concerns about the impact of politics on Japan’s economic security include selective diversification of supply chains away from China, reshoring, friend-shoring and national technological development, as per Asia Times.
Japan’s political leaders have already committed significant strategic and financial resources to enhance economic security through selectively diversifying supply chains and reducing reliance on China.
Initiatives include the adoption of supplementary budgets for economic security, such as securing domestic production bases for advanced semiconductors. Supplementary budgets have focused on promoting domestic investment to support supply chains and encourage their diversification.
Despite the political and security complexities, the mutually dependent economic relationship remains largely intact and is deepening and highly complementary. There is no replacing China as Japan’s major market for goods and services, as per Asia Times.
Japanese companies have invested heavily in China, particularly in the automobile, electronics and machinery sectors. China is also a major source of low-cost goods and components for Japanese companies. This role has kept prices low and enhanced the competitiveness of Japanese products in global markets. (ANI)
China’s chip imports drop 15%
China’s semiconductor imports dropped 14.6 per cent (year-on-year) in the first nine months this year amid tightened US export controls, the media reported on Saturday.
China imported 355.9 billion units of integrated circuits (ICs) from January to September, down from 416.7 billion in the same period last year, according to data published by the General Administration of Customs, reports South China Morning Post. The total value of IC imports fell 19.8 per cent to $252.9 billion.
However, “the year’s IC import trend for China shows a modest improvement over the past several months,” the report noted.
China’s huge demand for advanced semiconductors to power new artificial intelligence (AI) development projects has created a fast-growing market for graphics processing units (GPUs).
The drop in chip imports came amid increased export controls by the Joe Biden administration. In October last year, the US announced a set of rules that restrict exports of certain advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment and items to companies in China in an apparent bid to slow Beijing’s technological advances.
According to reports, US rules restricting shipments of AI chips and chipmaking tools to China are set to be tightened in the coming days. The US has been seeking to halt the rise of China’s artificial intelligence capability as China’s AI capability depends on its access to US chips, the reports mentioned.