Japan—security, semiconductors, democracy

Noah Buchan, "The world after a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan," Taipei Times, 7-14-2023, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2023/07/14/2003803158-- 嘉玮

JAPAN — SECURITY, SEMICONDUCTORS AND DEMOCRACY

Matake Kamiya says that a successful attack on Taiwan by China would shatter the security system of the US, having an equally detrimental effect on the world’s liberal democracies and their ability to provide each other with security guarantees.

“[A successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan] would change Japan’s security environment fundamentally. Any discussion for Japan of Taiwan’s fall should have this fact as its starting point,” writes Kamiya, a professor of international relations at the National Defense Academy of Japan.

Kamiya writes that most Japanese security experts he interviewed believe that the US can prevail against China if it attacked Taiwan — if, that is, it sends serious reinforcements. If Taiwan is taken, these experts reason, the US did not provide meaningful support, so “the confidence of regional countries in the US willingness to commit to regional security will collapse.”

Kamiya says that both imagined scenarios would for Japan amount to the same outcome, except in two areas. In scenario one, confidence in a US security alliance would plummet; scenario two could witness Japan and other allies of the US shifting towards China’s sphere of influence in an emerging bipolar Asia-Pacific.

However, under scenario two, China could attack Japan and the 50,000 US troops stationed there, which would further undermine trust in a Japanese-US security alliance. It may be the case, he adds, that the US would take Japan’s security more seriously, believing that if it doesn’t, Tokyo will side with China in an emerging Asia-Pacific conflagration.

Kamiya also discusses Taiwan’s existence as a democracy and close partner of Japan, which constrains China’s activities in the Pacific, and limits China’s access to US military bases in Guam and Hawaii — critical to maintaining peace and stability in the Western Pacific. Additionally, so long as China’s military is directed towards Taiwan, military power directed towards Japan remains limited. That would change after an invasion.

Chinese military activities will become more active than they are today in the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea, the Western Pacific and the South China Sea, where 90 percent of Japan’s crude and 60 percent of its natural gas are transported through. Japan’s current defense posture doesn’t anticipate a Chinese attack from the Pacific side, demonstrated quite clearly by the fact there are no Self-Defense Force bases or camps on the Izu Islands or the Bonin Islands.

With regards to semiconductor technology, the economic impact will not only be serious for Japan, but for the world as a whole. Thirty-three percent of the semiconductors used in Japan are imported from Taiwan. Tokyo also depends heavily on Taiwan for high-performance logic semiconductors that cannot be manufactured in Japan, while Taiwan currently accounts for 92 percent of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the world.

“The negative impact on Japan’s economy is expected to be substantial, if not critical,” he writes.

Finally, Kamiya says that a failure of the US and Japan to defend democratic Taiwan will also impress on the international community that liberal democracy is in retreat in East Asia and autocracy is on the rise.

“The cost of the fall of Taiwan is prohibitively high for Japan,” Kamiya writes.