Author | Li Jiaman
Source | Blue Blood Research
Recently, according to the latest report from Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that the US government is considering cutting off all contact between US suppliers and China's Huawei company, and at the same time, the US government has stopped issuing supply licenses to US companies to export products to Huawei, including items below the 5G level, such as 4G, Wifi 6 and Wifi 7, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing and cloud projects.
After the introduction of the "Chip and Technology Act of 2022" in August last year, the United States pulled South Korea, Japan and Taiwan together the plan of the so-called "chip quadripartite alliance" to further accelerate. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post commented that semiconductors have become the core of the US-China competition.
Looking back at history, the last time the United States launched a "semiconductor war" with great fanfare was against Japan in the 80s of the 20th century.
At that time, the United States' tactics included a series of "combination punches" such as anti-dumping, high tariffs, and sanctions. A closer look reveals that many of the recent measures taken by the United States against China have the shadow of Japan. So, how did Japan respond at that time?
01
Chinese and Japanese high-tech were attacked by the United States, half sea water and half flames
Ten years ago, Ren Zhengfei went to Japan to ask Kazuo Inamori for advice, and the two talked happily, and before leaving, Kazuo Inamori said to Ren meaningfully: "Huawei will get better and better in the future, but one thing to pay attention to is not to rely too much on the United States to prevent them from cutting off the supply of core components." ”
Now the United States has indeed done so, wanting to cut off the supply of chips to curb Huawei's development, but why can Kazuo Inamori predict in advance? In fact, this is not the first time that the United States has used this method to sanction other countries' enterprises.
In the 80s of the 20th century, the Japanese semiconductor manufacturing enterprises led by Toshiba grew rapidly, taking 60% of the US chip manufacturing, which made the United States feel a crisis, so it turned its face and began to suppress Toshiba, first detained the two founders of Toshiba for no reason, forced them to sell shares in exchange for freedom, and then constantly plotted against the top management within Toshiba, and cut off the supply of technology to Japan, and also raised tariffs several times, directly restricting the export of Toshiba products to the United States. This series of means made Toshiba suffer a great blow to decline, and since then it has been dormant and slowly returned to blood, which is the famous "Toshiba incident".
At that time, Japan still had illusions, this was Japan's fatal mistake, when the United States suppressed the Japanese semiconductor industry, the United States negotiated with Japan on the one hand, through the "Japan-US package of economic agreements" and so on, suppressed Japan at the negotiating table, and found breathing time for American companies. On the other hand, the United States has asked Japan to set specific "numerical targets" and "objective criteria" for opening its market and reducing its trade surplus with the United States, so that American companies and the US economy can once again gain overwhelming dominance.
However, at that time, Kazuo Inamori's Kyocera also faced the suppression of the United States, fortunately, he understood early on that "without his own core technology, he will definitely be led by others", led the team to independent research and development, broke the American technology monopoly, jumped out of the encirclement to gain a foothold, Kyocera also developed into a well-known Fortune 500 company.
Now Ren Zhengfei has also withstood the pressure and put forward a series of coping concepts that coincide with Kazuo Inamori, such as "continuing to attack the same city wall", strong men insisting on independent research and development of 5G technology, insisting on independent research and development of Hongmeng systems and Kirin chips, and also launched HUAWEI CLOUD, allowing Huawei to break through the encirclement of the United States with a tough posture and confidence.
02
Japanese high-tech was combed by the United States
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post also published an article comparing the Sino-US technological confrontation with the US-Japan economic friction that peaked in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. During the Reagan administration, the United States regarded Japan as the greatest economic threat to the United States. In the 80s of the 20th century, the United States fought a chip war with Japan, which eventually destroyed Japan's chip industry. Huang Shudong talks about this entire history in "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers", and we can take a look:
The reason is that after World War II, Japan's rapid economic recovery and the rise of science and technology, in the 1980s, the Japanese semiconductor industry even surpassed the United States to become the world's first.
In the fifties and sixties of the 20th century, when American electronics manufacturers promoted electronic products to Japan, Japan had almost no electronics industry. So, Japan decided to catch up. In the 70s, Japan began to compete with the United States in the electronics industry, and its products were popular with American consumers for high quality and low price. At that time, the secret of the rapid rise of the Japanese electronics industry was: strict market protection, cultivation of large and comprehensive electronic consortiums, the government promoted the technological development and cooperation of national industries, and then the rise of leading companies such as Panasonic, Hitachi, and Sony, the share of Japanese companies in the international market rose sharply, and Japanese electronic products swept the world and began to challenge the United States in the world.
For the monopoly position of high technology, the cornerstone of US hegemony, electronics, chip industry, is the hegemonic killer tool, the United States at this time regarded the rapid development of Japan's economy as a threat, trade frictions between the two countries have intensified. The electronics industry in the United States was hit hard, especially the chip industry, and even suffered a lot of losses, so the United States decided to counteract. In March 1977, the American semiconductor industry association SIA concluded that the success of Japan's electronics industry was the result of dumping in the United States. And in order to keep the U.S. electronics industry competitive, the U.S. government must intervene in this dispute. The U.S. government also agreed with SIA's position, and a U.S. government-led industrial war around the chip industry was officially launched.
The U.S. government has cracked down on the rise of Japanese semiconductors one by one. Next, the United States' macro attack on Japanese semiconductors includes requiring lower tariffs, opening markets, and restricting exports. At the same time, the United States directly "attacked" Japanese high-tech enterprises Toshiba, Hitachi and other representative enterprises, for example, the United States implemented a series of tariff suppression and sanctions on Japanese companies on the grounds of "stealing the intellectual property rights of American companies" and "stealing American technology", such as in 1982, the US Department of Justice accused Japanese semiconductor companies - Hitachi of "stealing" the core technology of American technology company IBM. Also in 1982, the U.S. government arrested Hitachi and Mitsubishi employees on industrial espionage charges, accusing them of stealing IBM technology, but public information since then shows that this is a "phishing law enforcement" by the United States. In 1985, Toshiba's secret sale of four precision machine tools to the Soviet Union was exposed, which became an excellent reason for the United States to suppress Japan. In June 1987, the United States passed the Toshiba Sanctions Act, closing Toshiba's American factories, canceling a series of procurement contracts, and prohibiting all Toshiba products from exporting to the United States for 2 to 5 years.
In addition, the United States and Japan signed the "U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement" in 1986, guaranteeing foreign companies to gain 20% of the market share in Japan within five years, and then the United States resorted to anti-dumping and other means to implement high punitive tariffs. Since then, Japan's semiconductor industry has gradually lost its advantage.
However, some interest groups in the United States believe that because of the high quality and low price of Japanese chips, from the perspective of international division of labor, the United States should let its ally Japan become its own chip provider, which is also beneficial to American consumers, some businessmen in the United States feel that since chips are no longer the dominant industry of the United States, they should give up, which is in business, but not everyone thinks so, of course, everyone also knows, that is, the Japanese semiconductor industry has suffered a devastating blow.
03
Lessons for Japan's response to U.S. sanctions
The first move of the United States to suppress Japan is to create something out of nothing, accusing Japan of stealing American technology and suppressing Japanese semiconductor companies. The second move is to fight an economic war with Japan on the surface, but in essence it is a science and technology war with Japan, which eventually forced Japan to sign the Plaza Accord and forced the yen to appreciate sharply, resulting in a surge in the price of high-quality and cheap Japanese semiconductors. The market share has declined rapidly, successfully hitting the Japanese semiconductor industry. The third trick is to kill people with a knife, and the United States supports South Korean semiconductor companies to encircle and suppress the Japanese semiconductor industry.
Now the United States treats us in the same way, from ZTE, to Huawei, to TikTok on the cusp of the storm recently, the United States continues to use various so-called reasons to suppress Chinese companies.
Although Japan's strangling of the United States was a failure in some respects, it is not completely without merit, let's see how Japan responded.
Japan's first strategy is to "retreat and fight" and "prepare for a rainy day", first of all, for those industries that have been slowly restricted, Japan has chosen to take the initiative to make concessions and suspend the conflict with the United States. During these 40 years, Japan signed several agreements with the United States to voluntarily restrict exports. But concessions are all about gaining respite and allowing restricted companies to find new breakthroughs. For example, Japan voluntarily imposed export restrictions on the textile industry as early as 1956, but soon after, the Japanese textile industry began to quietly target the high-tech textile field at that time, that is, the most advanced textile product - carbon fiber. Carbon fiber, also known as "black gold", this fiber is characterized by much greater strength than ordinary fibers, but also corrosion resistance, high temperature resistance, so it can be used to make body armor such as military products, and can even be used in the aerospace field, such as making aircraft.
In the 60s, carbon fiber technology in the United States has been developed for 10 years, and it is the products of the United Carbide Company that dominate the market. With the support of the Japanese government, Japanese companies began to invest a lot of money in research and development. In 1969, a breakthrough was finally made, and a high-performance carbon fiber material was developed.
Since then, Japan's Toray has relied on this technology to continue to develop, and is still a world leader, firmly occupying the first place in the global carbon fiber market share, and Toray is now Boeing's most stable and major supplier.
The cost advantage of the US sanctions against Japan has become Japan's driving force, upgrading the cost advantage into a technological advantage, which not only improves the competitiveness of products, but also helps Japan regain control of the initiative in foreign trade.
The second strategy is to find other growth points while layout.
In the 70s, Japan's friction with the United States was mainly concentrated in the fields of home appliances, steel, and automobiles. At this point in time, Japan began to vigorously develop the semiconductor and information industries. Originally, Japan's semiconductor technology lagged behind that of the United States. However, from the mid-70s, the Japanese government began to implement an innovation project for VLSI circuits. This project brings together five major companies, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Nippon Electric Appliances, and has invested more than 70 billion yen in R&D. These five companies usually compete with each other, but at this time, everyone has the same goal, that is, to achieve breakthroughs in the core technology of semiconductors. As a result, in just 4 years, the project has obtained more than 1,000 patents. Japan seized the chip market, and its technology in the field of microelectronics caught up with the United States.
By the end of the 80s, Japanese chips accounted for 53% of the global market, while the United States accounted for only 37%. In 1978, Japan also introduced a temporary measures law for the revitalization of the information industry, focusing on electronic computers, high-precision equipment, and knowledge industries. Companies in these fields not only have special government funds, but also tax and financial incentives. With the development of the information industry, a large number of well-known companies have emerged, such as Sony, Sharp and so on.
The third strategy is to fight in a roundabout way. This refers to the fact that Japanese companies are beginning to go international. Japan began to start production and build factories in other countries, turning other countries into export processing places for Japanese products.
In the 70s of the 20th century, Japanese automakers began to invest directly in the United States on a large scale. Like Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Fuji Heavy Industries, etc., these car companies have successively built factories in the United States and invested in local research and development institutions. It seems that Japan has exported fewer cars directly to the United States, but in fact, Japanese cars are becoming more and more important in the US market. Until now, Japanese cars have remained popular in the U.S. market, accounting for about 40% of the market.
Some experts said: No matter how the opponent strikes, Japan has always anchored the same goal, that is, to achieve industrial upgrading. Looking back over the past 40 years, Japan's economic landscape has undergone major changes. In the early 50s, the backbone of the Japanese economy was heavy industry and labor-intensive industries, and exports mainly relied on cost advantages. By the end of the 80s, high-end manufacturing had become an important pillar of the Japanese economy, and technological superiority had become a killer feature for Japanese companies. If we look only at the results of economic growth, then Japan has lost.
Under the industrial transformation, Japan's experience is that in the face of an unexpected event or a major challenge, the way to not be chaotic is to anchor the goal you set, no matter how the outside world disturbs you, do not take your eyes off that goal.
04
Summary
It took 10 years for the United States to crush the Japanese semiconductor industry. The patience, perseverance and determination of the United States to defeat the Japanese semiconductor industry can be seen, and Huawei should also learn from it. As the birthplace of the semiconductor industry, the United States has the richest accumulation of underlying technologies in both hardware and software. The United States is equivalent to building semiconductor foundations, while other countries are building semiconductor buildings on the basis of American foundations. Although Japan's semiconductor buildings are tall, big, and beautiful. But when the United States demolished the foundation, the Japanese semiconductor building collapsed. It also reminds us that it's time to build our own semiconductor foundation. How unstable it is to build a house on someone else's land.
Economy, science and technology are like the arteries and veins of a country. Life and death depend on each other, lips and teeth. If the economy fails, technology will fail. If technology does not work, the economy will be weak. What is the real purpose of the US trade war with China? Is it economic interests, or a fight against Chinese high technology, or a hybrid war in which I have you and you have me.
Will China suffer the same consequences as Japan?
Some experts said in an interview: The current semiconductor industry is very different from the 90s of the 20th century, when an enterprise produced specific products such as hard disks and memories, and several enterprises in one country could support the supply of products in the entire world. At present, semiconductor companies such as Chinese mainland, Taiwan, the United States, and South Korea occupy important positions, while Europe and Japan are relatively backward. In terms of products, it is no longer a single product such as hard disks, and chips are deeply involved in various fields such as digitalization, green manufacturing, double carbon, and information security.
The expert said that China is the world's largest semiconductor chip consumer market, if the product is not sold to China, the cost problem will immediately become prominent, and it is very difficult to maintain the update of semiconductor technology.
Experts concluded: If China makes a new layout in its economic strategy and further promotes technological innovation, it will definitely be able to avoid Japan's end that year.
Bibliography:
1. "Kill it all!" The United States has completely blocked Huawei, and 4G mobile phones are not allowed to be made! 》
2. "Huawei was cut off from supplying chips by the United States, Ren Zhengfei solved it with 1 move, it turned out to be learned from Kazuo Inamori"
3. "How did Americans do it 30 years ago to suppress the Japanese semiconductor industry?" 》
4. "US-Japan "Semiconductor War" Inspires China"
5. "In the face of U.S. trade suppression, can China learn from Japan's response strategies?" 》
6. "The "semiconductor war" of the United States and Japan inspired China! How do Chinese semiconductor companies break the game? 》
7. "Enlightenment from Japan, South Korea's Response to U.S. High-Tech Containment"
8. "The United States defeated Japanese semiconductors, the inspiration to China!" 》
Note: The content is for reference and subject to actual implementation
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