An obsession with “security” can create increasing insecurity. This paradox is being amply demonstrated as advanced nations, including the United States and Japan, take or contemplate joint action aimed at bolstering economic security but which could erode global economic growth and prosperity – or even result in physical conflict.
How might such threats crystallise? Strengthening security, whether economic or military, suggests increased defence spending to, for example, secure sea lanes and other transport links – precisely what we are seeing now. And it creates a “hoarding” or stockpiling mentality, which is also apparent.
The global saga of growing protectionism continued at the inaugural Tokyo Economic Security Forum, a government-hosted event for official, business and think tank representatives from Japan and mostly Western powers. The centrepiece of a series of forums to secure closer public-private cooperation in and beyond Japan, the idea is very much that threats to economic (and thus business and financial) security are growing, as China becomes more assertive and the US is less internationally supportive.
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Setting the backdrop for a panel discussion on economic security policies and strategies, the forum said: “Amid the increasingly severe and complex international landscape, nations are under pressure to undertake a range of measures from the perspective of economic security, including strengthening supply chains, nurturing and protecting critical technologies, and responding to economic coercion.”
Other panels were titled “Public-Private Collaboration to Strengthen Industrial and Technological Foundations for Economic Security”, “Critical Mineral Supply Chains” and “The Nexus of National Security and the Economy”.
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Supposedly imminent threats to the supply of critical raw materials and the supply chains that underpin the global supply of goods and services were reportedly cited by representatives from Japan, the US, Europe and Australia, among others, as justification for joint pre-emptive or remedial action. China was notably absent, despite being the “workshop of the world” and a critical source of raw materials.
