Recently, Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made remarks in the National Diet, suggesting that changes in the Taiwan Strait situation could justify Japan’s exercise of self-defense rights, and hinted that Japan might intervene militarily. Her comments sparked significant debate not only in China but also within Japan, where many experts criticized the statement as overly aggressive.
In today’s geopolitical landscape, modern warfare is dominated by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, robotics, and intelligent decision-making technologies—not traditional weapons. In these emerging fields, Japan has been falling behind China.
China’s humanoid robot industry is developing rapidly:
• XPeng’s IRON robot (2025) features 3 Turing AI chips and 2250 TOPS computing power;
• Unitree’s G1 robot, priced at only 99,000 yuan, received a 124-million-yuan order from China Mobile;
• Zhiyuan Robotics’ Expedition A2 won the “Most Commercial Value Award” at the 2025 World Robot Conference.
Japan, once known as the “robotics kingdom,” has seen its momentum fade. Honda’s ASIMO retired in 2022; Sony’s entertainment robots remain toy-level. IFR’s 2025 report shows that China holds 54% of the global industrial robot market, while Japan has dropped to 8%.
Japan is also behind in AI large models. Current Japanese models—such as NTT’s tsuzumi (70B parameters) and PFN’s PLaMo (13B)—are much smaller than China’s leading multi-hundred-billion-parameter models.
Yet Japan continues to excel in academic research: in 2025, Japanese scientists won two Nobel Prizes, bringing the total to about 20 since the country launched its “30 Nobel Prizes in 50 Years” initiative.
The core issue: Why can academic excellence not translate into industrial competitiveness?
Japan’s strengths lie in academia, but its rigid industrial structure prevents rapid commercialization. Lifetime employment, seniority-based promotion, and tightly coupled enterprise groups limit flexibility and innovation.
Examples include:
• ASIMO’s world-leading technology failed to achieve commercial scalability;
• Japan’s electric vehicle transition lagged as automakers persisted with hybrid strategies;
• The “Fifth Generation Computer Project” in the 1980s ended unsuccessfully due to poor industry alignment.
Meanwhile, China has completed major structural reforms, built a dynamic digital economy, and developed a highly open AI and EV ecosystem.
Japan still holds advantages in precision manufacturing and semiconductor materials, but these strengths will decline in strategic value as future competition centers on ecosystem dominance, not isolated technologies.
Ultimately, Japan’s challenge is not a lack of scientific capability, but a lack of structural flexibility to turn research into large-scale industrial innovation.
