Based on an essay by Yoshiko Sakurai, this article examines U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s sense of crisis toward China, the U.S.–China confrontation over 5G technological hegemony, the semiconductor industry, and the involvement of Japanese companies in Wuhan. It argues why Japan must stand with the United States, based on the view that China seeks not merely to conquer the world, but to own it.

April 21, 2020
U.S. Attorney General William Barr acknowledged that Russia tried to conquer the world, but China is trying to own the world, and that dealing with China is more difficult than dealing with Russia.
He acknowledged that Russia tried to conquer the world, but China is trying to own the world, and that dealing with China is more difficult than dealing with Russia.
This is a republication of a chapter I sent out on February 14 under that title.
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s regular column, which, together with Masayuki Takayama’s column, forms the closing highlight of the Weekly Shincho issue released yesterday.
As I have mentioned many times, Yoshiko Sakurai is one of the very embodiments of the “national treasure” defined by Saicho.
NHK reported almost nothing about who the Japanese residents of Wuhan were, who returned to Japan on chartered planes prepared by the government in several flights.
What it did report was an interview with a female university student said to be studying at a university in Wuhan.
I watched while wondering whether there is any university in Wuhan worth studying at.
NHK did not report at all that engineers from leading Japanese semiconductor-related companies were working in Wuhan on a scale of several hundred people.
Yoshiko Sakurai is a true journalist.
But it is no exaggeration to say that among the employees involved in NHK’s reporting, there is not a single journalist worthy of being in charge of a news program.
The U.S.–China 5G war.
Japan must fight together with the United States.
The first telephone conference between the U.S. and Chinese leaders since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus issue was held on February 7, and President Xi Jinping asked President Trump to ease the U.S. measures.
On January 30, the United States decided to prohibit U.S. citizens from traveling to all of China, and the following day announced the temporary refusal of entry to foreigners who had stayed in China within the previous 14 days.
China believes that the series of severe reactions by the international community came about because “the United States created fear and spread it throughout the world.”
Mr. Trump praised Mr. Xi’s response, but he did not agree to ease the travel ban.
The Wuhan virus issue has sharply exposed the characteristics of the one-party rule system of the Chinese Communist Party.
Because of those ugly characteristics, China pursues hegemony rather than coexistence and mutual prosperity with other countries, and drops the world into a trap of misfortune.
It is the Trump administration that is issuing this warning.
On February 6, U.S. Attorney General William Barr spoke with extreme frankness at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, a leading think tank in Washington, about the sense of crisis held by the Trump administration.
He acknowledged that Russia tried to conquer the world, but China is trying to own the world, and that dealing with China is more difficult than dealing with Russia.
Mr. Barr, who said that his dream had been to work at the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, as a China specialist, saw through China’s nature as that of a zero-sum-game country.
His analysis is right on target.
China’s intention is not to aim for “win-win” as Japan, the United States, and European countries do, but “eventually to bring capitalism to an end.”
Incidentally, Secretary of State Pompeo also said on January 30 that the Chinese Communist Party is “the greatest threat of the modern age.”
The severe understanding of these two men may be regarded as Mr. Trump’s true feeling, behind his flattering praise of Mr. Xi.
Mr. Barr cited two challenges facing the United States.
First, how to stop the theft of intellectual property that has given China an overwhelming advantage in economic and technological development.
Second, how the United States and its allies should deal with the reality that China is desperately seeking to establish technological hegemony in the 5G field.
Holding 40 percent of the world share.
I will omit the first point here.
Regarding the second point, Mr. Barr’s sense of crisis is serious, and Japan, both its government and its industrial world, must accurately understand the intention of the United States.
If 5G technology were compared to the human body, it would be like the body’s core together with the brain and entire nervous system that support it.
If the Internet based on 5G is constructed, it will become the technology that occupies the central nervous system of the world’s functions.
All industries will have no choice but to depend on 5G networks as the industrial foundation of the next generation.
By 2025, that is, in five years, 5G networks are expected to generate 23 trillion dollars, approximately 2,530 trillion yen.
The country that establishes 5G networks earlier than anyone else will win.
China, which is the most advanced, already holds 40 percent of the world share.
The development from 3G to 4G accelerated information communication from 1 megabit per second to 20 megabits per second.
In 4G, the United States led the way, and it benefited from many profits generated by 4G technology.
But now, for the first time in history, the United States is falling behind in the most important industry, 5G technology.
What reflects the strong sense of crisis in the United States is the ongoing U.S.–China trade war.
They have indeed begun a fierce counterattack so as not to be crushed by China.
5G technology cannot be constructed without three things: semiconductors, optical fiber, and rare earths.
Focusing on this point, the United States prohibited the export of semiconductors and other items necessary for 5G technology.
Shocked, China decided that if the United States would not sell them, it would procure them on its own, and again began furiously manufacturing semiconductors.
“China has already begun using its own semiconductors in place of American-made semiconductors. At present, we maintain a qualitative advantage, but China is the country that consumes half of the world’s semiconductors. Considering the scale of its manufacturing, its qualitative disadvantage is likely to be improved quickly,” said Mr. Barr.
Meanwhile, China is stopping at nothing to expand its 5G share further.
The world’s 5G infrastructure industry is currently worth 76 billion dollars, approximately 8.36 trillion yen, but China has prepared 100 billion dollars, approximately 11 trillion yen, in order to expand its share.
In other words, for every country or company that builds infrastructure with China’s 5G technology, the Chinese government will take care of building the 5G foundation, from base-station construction to every kind of infrastructure development and the acquisition of technology, without any financial burden on the receiving side.
Money is not all that China has prepared.
It has prepared a system to dispatch as many as 50,000 engineers anywhere in the world at the Chinese government’s expense.
Even if China has to bear a large cost at first, once a country introduces that 5G foundation, China’s future advantage will be virtually guaranteed.
China will control the world at will, and the result will be that it will literally own the world.
Seen in that light, 11 trillion yen is cheap.
“Japanese companies are helping.”
“The battle is fierce and severe. It will be settled within five years. The question is whether the United States and its allied countries can cooperate and build a strong long-term position that will allow them not to have to surrender to China,” said Mr. Barr.
The reality is not easy.
China has already built 100,000 5G base stations, while the United States is still discussing the repurposing of the C-band necessary for 5G infrastructure, and the development of base stations remains at only 70,000 to 80,000 stations.
Even more pathetic is the fact that the United States does not have technology that can replace Huawei’s.
There, Mr. Barr made a surprising proposal.
At present, the only companies in the world that can compete with Huawei are Nokia of Finland and Ericsson of Sweden.
Nokia’s world share is 17 percent, and Ericsson’s is 13 percent.
Both companies are trustworthy, but they do not have a large share like Huawei, nor do they have a huge domestic market.
Therefore, he said, the United States should consider acquiring management rights through capital participation and concentrate the power needed to confront China.
The United States’ sense of crisis is that strong.
What will Japan do?
Because of the novel coronavirus issue, many Japanese people returned from Wuhan.
Wuhan is a hub of the automobile industry, but in fact it is also a center of the semiconductor industry.
There, engineers from Japan’s leading companies were working on a scale of several hundred people.
Masahiko Hosokawa, special appointment professor at Chubu University, points this out.
“China is staking its national destiny on building 5G technology infrastructure throughout the world without the United States. It is aiming to produce all the necessary semiconductors by itself. Japanese companies are helping this. The fact that about half of the several hundred people who returned this time were semiconductor-related engineers shows this. I am seriously worried whether Japan-U.S. relations will be all right under these circumstances.”
Japan, things are not all right.
The struggle between the United States and China will continue for a long time.
Economic exchange with China is important.
But cooperation with China that helps China and shakes the foundations of the United States is, strategically, contrary to our national interest.
The industrial world and Keidanren must think about Japan’s position from a long-term perspective.