Japanese lawmakers urge U.S. to focus on AI, critical minerals pacts
· UPIWASHINGTON, May 6 (UPI) -- As President Donald Trump prepared for his meeting with China's president Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, Japanese lawmakers have urged the United States to remain focused on the U.S.-Japan alliance in artificial intelligence and critical minerals.
Trump said at a White House meeting Monday that the United States was outrunning China in the AI race.
Referring to the meeting May 14 and 15, Trump said, "I look forward to that. But I'll say 'I'm leading,'" he added jokingly. "We have very friendly competition, but it will actually be a very important trip."
The Japanese politicians, though, underscored the importance of the United States maintaining a strong partnership with Japan to further Trump's AI ambitions and reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains.
"No one country can build the entire AI stack alone. Not Japan, not even the United States. We are interdependent in filling certain layers of the AI stack to make this work and function, and we need collaboration in that front," Akihisa Shiozaki, deputy secretary general of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, said at a Brookings Institution panel discussion Monday.
He called Japan very strong in semiconductor manufacturing and materials, and noted the United States has innovative AI development companies.
"There's a lot of room for additional collaboration and alliance between these nations," Shiozaki said. "The United States should not be distracted from what is most important."
A market report released by the Semiconductor Industry Association last year showed China had been expanding its government expenditures on semiconductor research and development and outpacing Japan and Europe in semiconductor sales by 20%.
Still, Japan's semiconductor supply accounts for 8.2% of the global market, nearly twice China's share.
Shiozaki was part of a delegation of three Japanese lawmakers from Japan's ruling party to visit the United States. They stressed that the two countries need to collaborate in the face of China's export restrictions on rare earth minerals and refining technologies and dominance in various types of manufacturing.
"To put it frankly, we are dealing with China, which produces a third of manufacturing goods," said Keiro Kitagami, a member of Japan's House of Representatives and former Ministry of Finance official. "One country alone cannot insulate itself or try to deter China's weaponization of economic means, so we have to get together."
Data from the International Energy Agency show that China is the leading refiner, holding 70% of the global average market share for 19 of 20 important strategic minerals.
The Chinese government announced export controls last month on seven heavy rare earth elements, affecting the global energy supply chain for countries like Japan, which rely on a small number of suppliers.
Mira Rapp-Hopper, a former Biden administration adviser on East Asia and Oceania, said the relationship between the United States and Japan was more important than ever because of the current geopolitical climate. She said the combination of the Strait of Hormuz closure and China's export restrictions exposed Japan's vulnerabilities in energy and mineral imports.
Rapp-Hopper said that if the United States wants to reduce supply chain dependence on China, it needs to prepare for long-term policy coordination with Japan. She pointed to Japan's importance in protecting against various issues posed by China, including potential military defense and tech privacy risks.
"We're long-standing allies where our strategic interests have never been more aligned," said Rapp-Hopper, a senior adviser at The Asia Group, a private-sector geopolitical risk consultancy.
"Whether you're worried about potential military defense risks from China, you're worried about our semiconductor industry and ability to protect our sensitive tech, whether you want critical minerals independence, whether you want to make sure that AI is something on which we still have the leading edge, and we're also governing it safely, Japan is critical to every single one of these decisions.
Before Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's first bilateral meeting with Trump at the White House in March, Washington announced signing a memorandum of cooperation regarding the technology prosperity deal with Japan.
The deal was intended to accelerate AI adoption and innovation and build a reliable AI ecosystem in the Indo-Pacific. It also emphasized leading-edge semiconductor technology collaborations between the United States and Japan to enhance the foundational infrastructure of AI performance.
Then, after a White House news conference last month, Trump accused Japan and other allies in the Pacific of not offering more support in the war against Iran. He said Japan "didn't help us," even though the United States has 55,000 troops in Japan, according to data from the U.S. Department of Defense.
The United States has maintained long-term military defense cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries to protect U.S. allies against China and North Korea.
Now, with Trump soon heading to China to address important issues such as critical minerals, Rapp-Hopper said the president also must keep Japan in mind during that trip and moving forward.
"I would say to this administration and others that it's really important to make medium- and long-term choices in all of our relationships and understand that in any type of system we seek to build and protect in the 21st century, Japan is a critical part, and there's no way around that," she said.