Originally published on February 14, 2020.
This article introduces a column by Yoshiko Sakurai in Shukan Shincho and discusses the Wuhan virus crisis, the U.S.-China summit phone call, U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s CSIS speech, the 5G technology war, and the danger of Japanese semiconductor companies helping China.
It argues that the Chinese Communist Party is seeking global control through 5G technology and that Japan must stand strategically with the United States.

February 14, 2020
He acknowledged that Russia had 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.
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s regular column, which, together with Masayuki Takayama’s column, adorned the closing pages of Shukan Shincho released yesterday.
As I have stated many times, Yoshiko Sakurai is one of the very embodiments of the “national treasure” as defined by Saichō.
NHK reported virtually nothing about who the Japanese residents of Wuhan were who returned to Japan on chartered planes prepared by the government in several flights.
What NHK did report was an interview with a female college student said to be studying at a university in Wuhan—while I watched it wondering whether Wuhan really had any university worth studying at.
NHK did not report at all that engineers from Japan’s top 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 NHK employees involved in news 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 Alongside America
On February 7, the first telephone summit between the leaders of the United States and China since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus problem was held, and President Xi Jinping asked President Trump to ease U.S. measures.
On January 30, the United States decided to prohibit U.S. citizens from traveling anywhere in China, and on the following day announced the temporary refusal of entry to foreign nationals who had stayed in China within the previous 14 days.
China believes that the series of severe reactions by the international community occurred 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.
This Wuhan virus problem has sharply exposed the characteristics of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party rule.
It is the Trump administration that is warning that, because of these ugly characteristics, China pursues hegemony rather than coexistence and mutual prosperity with other countries, and is pushing the world into a trap of misfortune.
On February 6, U.S. Attorney General William Barr spoke with extreme frankness at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading think tank in Washington, about the sense of crisis held by the Trump administration.
He acknowledged that Russia had 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 his dream had been to work for the CIA as a China specialist, saw through China’s character as that of a zero-sum-game nation.
His analysis is right on the mark: unlike Japan, the United States, and European countries, which aim for “win-win” outcomes, China’s intention is “eventually to bring capitalism to an end.”
Incidentally, Secretary of State Pompeo also said on January 30 that the Chinese Communist Party is “the central threat of our times.”
It may be fair to regard the severe recognition shared by these two men as Mr. Trump’s true view, in contrast to his flattering praise of Mr. Xi.
Mr. Barr listed two challenges facing the United States.
First, how to stop the theft of intellectual property that gives China an overwhelming advantage in economic and technological development.
Second, how the United States and its allies should respond to the reality that China is frantic to establish technological hegemony in the field of 5G.
China Has Secured 40 Percent of the Global Market
Here I will omit the first issue.
Regarding the second issue, Mr. Barr’s sense of crisis is profound, and both the Japanese government and Japanese industry must accurately understand America’s intentions.
5G technology is, if compared to the human body, like the torso together with the entire brain and nervous system that support it.
Once an internet built on 5G is constructed, it will become the technology that occupies the central nerve system of global functions.
Every industry will have no choice but to depend on 5G networks as the industrial foundation of the next generation.
By 2025, that is, within the next five years, 5G networks are expected to generate 23 trillion dollars, or approximately 2,530 trillion yen.
The country that establishes a 5G network before anyone else will win.
China, which is the most advanced, has already secured 40 percent of the global market.
The development from 3G to 4G accelerated information communication from 1 megabit per second to 20 megabits per second.
The United States led in 4G, and it benefited greatly from the 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.
The ongoing U.S.-China trade war reflects America’s strong sense of crisis.
They have indeed begun a fierce counterattack in order not to be crushed by China.
5G technology cannot be built without three things: semiconductors, optical fiber, and rare earths.
Focusing precisely on these areas, the United States prohibited exports of semiconductors and other products necessary for 5G technology.
Shocked, China resolved that if America would not sell them, it would procure them on its own, and it likewise threw itself furiously into semiconductor production.
“China has already begun using domestically produced semiconductors in place of American semiconductors.
At present, we maintain a qualitative advantage, but China is a country that consumes half of the world’s semiconductors.
Judging from the scale of its manufacturing, I think its qualitative inferiority will be improved rapidly,” Mr. Barr said.
Meanwhile, China is stopping at nothing to further expand its share of 5G.
The global 5G infrastructure industry is currently worth 76 billion dollars, or approximately 8.36 trillion yen, but China has prepared 100 billion dollars, or approximately 11 trillion yen, to expand its share.
In other words, for all countries and companies that build infrastructure using Chinese 5G technology, the Chinese government will take care of everything from base-station construction to all kinds of infrastructure development and the acquisition of technology, without any financial burden on the receiving side.
Money is not the only thing China has prepared.
It has established a system to dispatch as many as 50,000 engineers anywhere in the world at the expense of the Chinese government.
Even if this is initially a large outlay for China, once a country introduces that 5G infrastructure, China’s future superiority is as good as guaranteed.
China will control the world at will and will, quite literally, end up owning the world.
Seen in that light, 11 trillion yen is cheap.
“Japanese Companies Are Helping”
“The fight is intense and severe.
It will be decided within five years.
The question is whether the United States and its allies can cooperate and build a strong long-term position that will enable them not to surrender to China,” Mr. Barr said.
The reality is not easy.
While China has already built 100,000 5G base stations, the United States is still discussing the diversion of the C-band necessary for 5G infrastructure, and its base-station development is said to be limited to 70,000 to 80,000 stations.
Even more pathetic is the fact that the United States has no technology that can replace Huawei’s.
At that point, Mr. Barr made a startling proposal.
At present, the only companies in the world capable of competing with Huawei are Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson.
Nokia’s global market share is 17 percent, and Ericsson’s is 13 percent.
Both companies are trustworthy, but neither has a large share like Huawei, nor do they have a huge domestic market.
Therefore, Mr. Barr said that the United States should consider acquiring management control through capital participation and gather the strength needed to confront China.
America’s sense of crisis is this strong.
What will Japan do?
Many Japanese nationals returned from Wuhan City because of the novel coronavirus problem.
Wuhan is an industrial cluster for the automobile industry, but it is in fact also a center of the semiconductor industry.
There, engineers from Japan’s top companies were working on a scale of several hundred people.
Masahiko Hosokawa, specially appointed 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 aims to produce all necessary semiconductors on its own.
Japanese companies are helping it do so.
The fact that approximately half of the several hundred people who returned this time were semiconductor-related engineers demonstrates this.
I am seriously worried about whether U.S.-Japan relations will be all right under these circumstances.”
Japan, things are not all right.
The U.S.-China battle will continue for a long time.
Economic exchange with China is important, but cooperation with China that helps China and shakes the foundations beneath America is strategically contrary to Japan’s national interest.
Both industry and Keidanren must think about Japan’s position from a long-term perspective.