Commentary
Japan seems to be planning an end-run around China’s trading power.
As chair of the G-7 meetings scheduled for this May in Hiroshima, Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is leveraging concerns about supply chain reliability to range this group of powerful economies—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—against China.
Two items stand out on Kishida’s agenda: one is semiconductors, and the other is rare earth elements. Computer chips are essential to all computers, communications, utilities, automobiles, household appliances, and just about every product and service—if not directly, then indirectly. Rare earth elements are essential in the batteries and magnets on which electric vehicles, smartphones, and other such products increasingly depend. In other words, chips and rare earth are essential to the health of the G-7 economies and the global economy….