The wave of U.S. operations in Afghanistan worries not only the European Union and Taiwan, but also the Japanese, who are also a little flustered, and for the United States, the huge loss of interests will make them pay less attention to Japan. Because of the arrogance of many Japanese officials who "worship ghosts" before, it provoked anger in China and South Korea.
Hatred has been pulled, but teammates have not cared, how can Japan not panic?
Worse, the U.S. plans to spend billions of dollars in chip manufacturing to counter China, but the move could create a devastating crisis for the Japanese semiconductor industry, which will be completely squeezed out of the market.
Once Japan, due to the rise of the semiconductor industry, successfully ranked among the developed countries, its leading posture made the red-eyed United States launch a trade war to hit the Japanese economy.
Since then, in the "lost 30 years" of the economy, Japan's share of the global chip manufacturing industry has dropped from 50% to 10%, naturally because of customers and lower-cost competitors, while Japan has not been able to maintain its leading position in cutting-edge production. With the squeeze of the market, Japanese experts expect that by 2030, the share of the Japanese chip industry may be zero.
Everyday life such as air conditioners, smart phones, and even electric toothbrushes, from cars, all kinds of machinery, aircraft, chips, which penetrate into all walks of life, the importance of the economy is self-evident, it has become another strategic battlefield for competition among countries.
So the U.S. Senate approved a bill authorizing $190 billion to invest in new technologies, of which $54 billion was spent on chip research and development, and the European Union plans to spend $159 billion to prop up the digital economy.
In March 2021, China listed semiconductor investment as one of the seven priorities of its five-year economic plan, and the card neck is uncomfortable, so it needs to be self-reliant.
To catch up with this investment, Japan must allocate a lot of public funds, but the response to the epidemic and aging has prevented the Japanese government from investing huge sums of money that rival the United States, the European Union, and China, and Japan is currently allocating $450 million to strengthen the chip technology supply chain.
But this gap worries Japan, although Japan is still an important global producer of chip raw materials.
Japanese officials are also concerned that by attracting Asian chip foundry giants such as TSMC to the United States, it could lead some companies to follow suit. The United States has always been "America first," and it is not impossible to insert two knives from Japan for this reason.
In fact, after the core "famine", US President Biden has been under pressure, he was required to invest in domestic chip manufacturing and take more measures to protect the US supply chain, and Biden also announced that he wants to bring more production chains home.
But naturally the U.S. plan does not include Japan's dead or alive.
Unlike the previous wave between Japan and the United States and Japan, Now Japan has put more eggs in the Japanese and American baskets, and it has a desperate gambler mentality in its China policy.
Therefore, out of diplomatic scruples, Japan's current cabinet members paid relative restraint in visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, but after the Japanese government made a new choice, after the rapid decline in Japan-China relations and the deterioration of Japan-South Korea relations, Japanese politicians even launched a collective visit to the shrine, which is a blatant provocation to neighboring countries.
The Japanese side has repeatedly talked about the Taiwan Strait and shown extraordinary enthusiasm in opposing China, but with the United States "gambling on the fortunes of the country," Japan needs to take even greater risks.
To put the United States on the side, Japan has provided up to $500 million in reconstruction assistance support to Afghanistan, and over the past two decades, Japan has accumulated more than $6.9 billion in aid, which is mainly used to "help restore peace in Afghanistan."
But now? The United States ran away, and the collapse shocked Japan, which firmly believed in the United States, and Japan could provide $450 million for its chip industry, while the cumulative investment of $6.9 billion was lost.
Ending in such a situation is really difficult for Japan to accept. But following the United States, there may be more difficulties to accept. (Jin Xuan)