Japan has made demolition of the Chinese economy one of its major foreign policy priorities. Last year, former PM Shinzo Abe started harming China by pulling Japanese companies out of the Communist nation. And now Abe’s successor, Yoshihide Suga has taken the battle forward by encouraging Japanese businesses to shun ties with China. As such, Tokyo is looking to completely decouple the Japanese economy from China.
In line with the Suga government’s ambition to isolate Beijing, Japanese businesses are giving a cold shoulder to China. As per Nikkei Asia, leading Japanese infrastructure companies will stop using China-made drones. They are therefore joining the Suga government in its efforts to curb security risks posed by Chinese technology.
Presently, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone subsidiaries in Japan use drones for inspecting telecommunications cables on bridges. Some of such drones were made in China, but now such China-made drones will be swapped with drones made in Japan or elsewhere even before the time for replacing them is due.
Similarly, Kyushu Electric Power presently uses drones made by DJI, a drones company based out of Shenzhen in China, as well as Japanese or Swiss drones to inspect equipment high off the ground. Kyushu has stated, “We are weighing appropriate responses, including on security risks.” It will also consider replacing DJI drones with Japanese alternatives.
Last year, Reuters had reported that Japan, effective April 2021, was all set to close its domestic markets for aerial drones manufactured or developed in China. Reuters had also quoted six officials from the Japanese government, who all unanimously stated that the decision to gradually kick Chinese avionic technology out from Japan was centred on the idea of securing Japan as a nation and protecting its national security.
Now, it seems that Japanese companies too are complementing the Suga government’s efforts to kick oust Chinese drone-makers from the Japanese market. The primary consideration is, of course, national security and the apprehension that China could misuse advanced technology and information obtained from drones for military purposes. However, the Japanese drone-makers are going to gain big, even as China is compelled to give up the huge drones market it presently holds in Japan.
Japan’s Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory (ACSL) is developing a drone in collaboration with Yamaha Motor and other enterprises. Satoshi Washiya, the President of ACSL, said, “Major electricity and gas companies have approached us, saying they want to switch to domestically made drones for inspections and other uses.”
However, drones are just an example. Japan has been decoupling from Chinese businesses across a number of sectors. In March, the Yoshihide Suga government closed Japan’s doors for popular messaging app ‘Line’, owned by SoftBank Corp’s Z Holdings after sensational news reports came out suggesting that the Chinese engineers of the company working in a remote location of Shanghai had compromised the details of its users after they were allowed access to the servers in Japan from 2018.
Also, SBI Holdings, a Japanese financial services company, recently dissolved its joint venture project with a leading Chinese financial institution, Ping An Insurance. The joint venture project was cancelled due to two reasons which are typically associated with China- high costs of operation and apprehensions of security threats like data leaks.
The Suga government is, therefore, able to convince Japanese businesses about understanding the security risks posed by Chinese technology giants and the predatory character of Chinese investments. Japanese businesses are thus quickly decoupling from the Chinese economy and this is bound to leave the Communist nation ravaged.