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China shipbuilding
EconomyGlobal Economy

China’s grip on global ship repair worries Japan. Can Tokyo end its dependence?

Tokyo’s new industrial strategy reflects growing concern over economic security amid frayed bilateral ties with Beijing, analysts say

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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ shipbuilding factory near Dejima port in Nagasaki bay in Japan. Photo: Shutterstock
Ralph Jennings
A 370 trillion yen (US$2.28 trillion) industrial upgrade plan unveiled by Japanese officials could help revive the country’s ship repair sector as Tokyo seeks to reduce reliance on China, which now dominates the global market, analysts said.

The plan, approved by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s cabinet, targets 17 strategic industries, including semiconductors, AI and shipping, including the repair of large seagoing vessels.

About 100 billion yen (US$616 million) would be allocated to ship repair capacity, eWorldship, a Chinese business-to-business industry portal, calculated in a WeChat post on Sunday. In the official draft, Tokyo said a mix of public and private investments would finance the upgrades through 2040.

Japan currently handled only 7 per cent of its own ship repairs, eWorldship said, while China was responsible for 60 per cent of the global total, including most of the work on Japanese vessels. This growing reliance had raised concerns in Tokyo amid increasingly strained bilateral ties, according to analysts.

“Prime Minister Takaichi has been taking a hawkish stance against China since (she was) elected,” said Liang Yan, a professor of economics at Willamette University in the United States. “Seeing China as an economic ... threat prompts the interest to rebuild the ship repair sector to reduce vulnerability.”
The two countries have chafed for years over territorial disputes and, in November, Takaichi angered Beijing by suggesting Tokyo could deploy military forces in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

Against this backdrop, Katsuya Yamamoto, director of the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Strategy and Deterrence Programme, underlined the strategic importance of shipping.

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