Referring to Yoshiko Sakurai’s Weekly Shincho column, this article examines the pharmaceutical supply-chain problem exposed by the Wuhan virus. It points out the reality that China can use medicine exports as a diplomatic weapon and means of intimidation, potentially influencing the lives of people in the United States, Japan, and other countries, and calls for urgent reduction of dependence on China.

March 31, 2020
The supply-chain problem exposed by the Wuhan virus has also revealed the fact that China has gained the power to control the world’s pharmaceuticals and, by making only slight changes in strategy, to affect the lives of the people of other nations.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
“Intimidating the United States”
By the centennial of the founding of the People’s Republic, the Chinese Communist Party aims to stand towering among the peoples of the world as the leader of the earth, the so-called community of shared destiny for mankind.
Longing for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, they firmly believe that something as ominous as the Wuhan virus must not be a product of the Chinese world.
They think that ominous and blameworthy matters should be problems of barbaric countries other than China, and must have nothing to do with China.
For example, during wartime, it was in fact the Chinese army that massacred residents, but they thought that such barbarities must all have been committed by the Japanese army, and so they fabricated history.
In the same way, they have probably decided that the present viral calamity must have originated in the United States.
China, as the leader of the world, has instead settled on the notion that it is a model nation that wisely overcame the Wuhan virus, and that the qualification to be world leader belongs not to the United States but to China.
It is in this context that pharmaceuticals have suddenly emerged as a powerful weapon for China.
The earlier Xinhua editorial also asserted the following:
“China could also impose export controls on pharmaceuticals. In that case, the United States would sink into a sea of coronavirus.”
A vivid memory returns.
Rare earths.
When a Chinese vessel rammed a Japan Coast Guard ship in the waters around the Senkaku Islands, and Japan detained the Chinese captain and others, China moved to restrict exports of rare earths to Japan.
This time, instead of rare earths, it is pharmaceuticals.
The statement by China’s state-run media mentioned above is nothing other than an expression of the Chinese government’s will.
It was only natural that on March 11, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida spoke with open alarm on FOX NEWS.
Rubio stated frankly:
“China can threaten the United States by saying it will cut off the supply of pharmaceuticals. In that case, it would become extremely difficult for us to confront them.”
Looking at the actual situation, Rubio’s statement can be said to express the difficult position in which the United States has been placed.
China has indeed long since risen to become the main force in the production of the world’s pharmaceuticals.
In pharmaceutical research and development, the United States still maintains the world’s top level, but the power that bears the main body of the pharmaceutical industry has already shifted to China.
For example, China’s pharmaceutical market was worth 123 billion dollars, about 13.5 trillion yen, in 2017, and was expected to grow to 175 billion dollars, about 19.3 trillion yen, by 2022.
On the other hand, drug manufacturing in the United States has continued to decline.
Penicillin, which saved the lives of many people, became the last major pharmaceutical product manufactured by the United States.
Since then, the United States has depended on China for 80 to 90 percent of its antibiotics, 70 percent of its painkillers and antipyretics, and 40 percent of heparin, a drug used to prevent thrombosis.
There are also statistics showing that more than 80 percent of the main ingredients in consumer pharmaceuticals in the United States are imported, mainly from China.
Affecting the lives of the peoples of other nations.
Under such circumstances, China can inflict tremendous damage on another country by stopping the export of specific pharmaceuticals, or conversely by accelerating it.
Because this concerns human life, the impact would be more urgent than rare earths.
That also means China’s position becomes all the more advantageous.
One of the focal points in the U.S.-China trade war was fentanyl, a powerful painkiller and synthetic opioid.
Its effect is said to be 100 times that of morphine.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2017, and more than 28,000 of them died because of fentanyl.
In response to this situation, in October 2017, President Trump declared a state of emergency in order to prevent the spread of the illicit use of painkillers, including fentanyl.
There was ample reason why, in December 2018, during his summit meeting with Xi Jinping in Argentina, President Trump strongly requested that China crack down on fentanyl exports to the United States.
However, even after Trump made that request, fentanyl exports from China to the United States did not immediately decrease.
It was also reported that China’s Ministry of Science and Technology continued to pay subsidies to companies exporting fentanyl to the United States.
It was not until April 2019 that China’s Ministry of Public Security and National Health Commission finally announced that they would implement regulations on fentanyl from the first day of the following month.
However, the Chinese side never withdrew its claim that “China is not the main source of fentanyl-like substances flowing into the United States.”
China is receiving praise from various countries by providing as relief supplies such items as masks, of which it holds an overwhelming share of world production.
However, the supply-chain problem exposed by the Wuhan virus has also revealed the fact that China has gained the power to control the world’s pharmaceuticals and, by making only slight changes in strategy, to affect the lives of the people of other nations.
Japan and the United States alike must urgently reduce their dependence on China in every possible sense.