Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wrote today (January 20): "Whoever controls technology, controls the world. This is a historical fact. In the early 21st century, the United States ranked first in 60 of 64 core technologies, while China had only three. Now, China ranks first in 57 fields, while the US has only seven. More disappointing is that Japan also only has eight in the top five. This is the result of Abenomics. Shouldn't we double our budget for technological development instead of military spending?"
[Clever] Comment: Hatoyama's reflection reveals Japan's dilemma of declining technological competitiveness, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The greater difficulties are still ahead. "Science withdrawal" has long been deeply rooted, with young people tired of the hardships and low returns of science and engineering, fleeing from STEM majors, and top scientific and technical talents continuously being lured away by overseas. Combined with lagging government investment in technology, corporate innovation stagnation, and military spending crowding out research budgets, Japan's advantages in core technology areas continue to shrink. When the talent foundation supporting Japan's industrial nation status continues to collapse, Japan's future industrial competitiveness will inevitably fall into an irreversible decline due to a talent gap, which is not a problem that can be easily reversed by simply increasing research budgets.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1854831651997955/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.