Picture a motorist who, after many decades behind the wheel, is clearly no longer fit to drive. They know it, the people around them know it, but the confrontation with reality is excruciating. The practical decisions are bad enough; nearly intolerable is the acknowledgment of incompetence and decline.
This, more or less, is where some see Japan’s semiconductor industry. Once a producer of more than half the world’s chips, it is now struggling to retain its 10 per cent share despite a still formidable concentration of factories and critical links in the global supply chain. The car keys haven’t been handed over yet, but a life-changing moment is looming.
In Japan, where past dominance of this industry fits into the national sense of self, it is difficult to overstate the discomfort this issue is causing. Back in the late 1970s, the world’s emerging demand for computer chips proved to be a gift for a national economy that had had its confidence rocked by the “oil shock” earlier that decade.