Saturday, December 23, 2017 | The Japan Times | 7 Established 1897 Chairperson and Publisher MINAKO KAMBARA SUEMATSU Incorporating The Japan Advertiser 1890-1940 President TAKEHARU TSUTSUMI The Japan Chronicle 1868-1940 Director and Executive Editor HIROYASU MIZUNO The Japan Mail 1870-1918 Managing Editor SAYURI DAIMON The Japan Times 1865-1870 Chief Editorial Writer TAKASHI KITAZUME opinionOpinion Desk: [email protected] Accomplishments 5G: China’s dream to dominate world technology of shogi and go The threat from Beijing operate in China and forces those who do so to share their technology has long been highlights a convergence known. champions of interests between Intellectual property problem the U.S. and Europe As the world’s largest consumer of semicon- ductors and memory chips, China has col- EEditorial lected considerable influence in this sector. hogi champion Yoshiharu Habu this month THOMAS J. DUESTERBERG Part of its “knowledge bank” is due to Chi- became the first shogi player to hold all seven WASHINGTON nese firms regularly trying to violate patents THE GLOBALIST and other intellectual property. eisei lifetime titles of the game. Go champion Yuta If we want to protect our own industrial SIyama in October succeeded in grabbing all seven major U.S.-European cooperation on economic future, we should urgently take note of the go titles simultaneously for the second time. Their great issues is at a low ebb. Efforts to rekindle fact that many of these tactics are banned in accomplishments come at a time when human players interest in mutually advantageous policies the rules of the World Trade Organization. have become no match for rapidly progressing artificial such as the revival of the Transatlantic Trade With its impact on the nascent internet of and Investment Partnership are not likely to things, as well as its parallel efforts to domi- intelligence in their respective board games. Their feats succeed for the time being. nate the electric vehicle industry, Chinese carry extra significance in that they have highlighted the Under the prevailing circumstances, trans- efforts on 5G are a particularly major chal- fact that shogi and go matches are fascinating for their Atlantic disillusionment has settled in. A bet- lenge to the German and Japanese automo- drama and excitement — two elements that comput- ter approach than letting mutual acrimony tive and semiconductor firms. ers cannot generate merely by winning games through languish would be to focus on a joint chal- To maintain technology leadership, Euro- algorithms. lenge — how to meet the resolute Chinese pean and U.S. industrial firms, as longtime challenge to the industrial economies of the global technology leaders, must therefore In the fifth round for the 30th Ryuo title held in early West. take six specific, concerted policy initiatives. December in Ibusuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, Habu beat Chinese President Xi Jinping’s growing title-holder Akira Watanabe in 87 moves. The 4-1 victory consolidation of power is giving ever more Six specific policy initiatives in their best-of-seven match enabled him to retake the momentum to the ambitious Chinese plan GETTY IMAGES First, they must redouble their efforts to pro- prestigious title for the first time in 15 years. Since he has to gain dominance of high-tech industries. tect patents around the world, including the This is nothing short of a head-on assault, like the electric grid depends on 5G technol- munications are heightened in this scenario. need to limit the reach of antitrust authori- won the Ryuo title seven times, he gained the eisei life- 5G is a crucial given that these industries to date have been ogy as well. So do modern wireless systems Chinese firms will also have the upper hand ties over patent licensing. time Ryuo honor. This made him a holder of eisei honors the main source of strength in the U.S. and that will need a huge increase in the trans- in equipment markets. enabling Second, they have to work on improving for all seven major shogi titles — Ryuo, Meijin, Oi, Oza, European economies. mission speed and bandwidth of their tele- Forever seeking competitive advantage, technology of conditions for private firms to benefit from Kio, Osho and Kisei. communications infrastructures. China deliberately uses its huge market size the future. It basic and applied research in technology and It must be noted that, given the tough competition in Made in China 2025 to convince outside firms to use those stan- is needed for software. the shogi world, to earn even a single lifetime honor is Even the briefest of looks at the Chinese gov- A massive investment dards. This effort also goes well beyond “just” a multitude of Third, they have to cooperate in the WTO ernment’s “Made in China 2025” program Building out that infrastructure in and of the 5G field. purposes that to use existing rules or craft new ones as quite difficult. Each title has a rule for according an eisei underscores the full scope of China’s effort. itself will involve hundreds of billions of dol- 4G was crucial to development of new needed to discipline Chinese subsidiza- honor to a player. Depending on titles, a player must win Make no mistake about it: The explicit goal lars of investment on a global scale. Whoever apps and related services such as Uber and only begins tion, dumping, forced technology transfer the title five or more times, either in total or consecu- is not just to move up the ladder of indus- captures major parts of the market will be in Airbnb. Telecom expert Roger Entner goes so with building and unfair trade practices of state-owned tively. To obtain the Ryuo eisei honor, a player must win trial technology leadership, but to eventually a strong position to compete in new areas far as to argue: “The dominance that Google the ‘internet enterprises. the Ryuo titles either five times back to back or seven dominate it. like the internet of things. and Apple have over the mobile ecosphere of things’ and Fourth, they must be vigilant in maintain- The goals are as ambitious as they are mer- For national security and cybersecurity could not be possible without America’s 4G ing the private sector-led model for standard time in total. shifting to cantilist: Chinese companies are to control purposes, it is important for the United dominance.” 5G will be equally important setting in the telecommunications field. Habu’s great accomplishment will add to the excite- 70 percent or more of domestic consump- States and its allies to be able to rely on the to the internet of things and artificial intel- autonomous Fifth, they should work cooperatively to ment in the shogi community along with the advent tion in 10 key industries by 2025. safety of this infrastructure. ligence apps. vehicles. develop rules on foreign investment respon- of 14-year-old prodigy Sota Fujii, who in June set an China’s list of the targeted industries con- But that is clearly not the game plan the sive to the state-directed and subsidized poli- all-time record of 29 consecutive victories while being stitutes a particularly direct threat to the eco- Chinese have in mind. Their ambition, upon Funding R&D cies now employed by China. unbeaten since his professional debut in October 2016. nomic pillars of both German and American which they are acting with great determina- The standard setting issue aside, through its And finally, sixth, the national security industry. It includes aerospace, semiconduc- tion, is to control the access to all sorts of data “Made in China 2025” program, China also teams from NATO allies and Japan should Habu himself turned pro in 1985 when he was only tors, autos and robotics sectors, to name just collection. pours huge amounts of money into research cooperatively address the questions to in the third year of junior high school. In 1989, when he the most visible. Inside their own country, China already and development of all types of software and cybersecurity related to the development was just 19, he became the youngest- One area of special concern is telecommu- monitors the daily life of its citizens. The new hardware needed for 5G. and implementation of 5G systems. Shogi and go ever shogi player to win a title when nications technology. It is not just important 5G standard has the potential to extend this This includes subsidizing both research he clinched the Ryuo. In 1996, at the as a major industry but, via the information capability on an international scale. and building of new production facilities The value of working together players have technology space, will also increasingly be After all, whoever sets the standards for and related equipment. For instance, for It is to be hoped that collaboration to meet age of 25, he became the first player started to a driver of the entire industrial economy in the new 5G technology will have the upper advanced semiconductors China has tar- this challenge will result in Europe and the hone their to dominate all seven major shogi coming years. hand globally in extending surveillance and geted around $160 billion alone for support- U.S. in particular to gain new confidence in tactics and titles. Now 47 — an age at which We are all aware that 5G is a crucial data mining on an unprecedented new scale. ing the next generation of semiconductor the value not only of working together, but strategy by many past shogi champions were no enabling technology of the future. It is technology and $180 billion for 5G infra- also of finding ways to improve the existing learning from longer able to win titles — Habu’s needed for a multitude of purposes that only Digital object architecture structure build-out.