Chapter 404: Surface And Depth
Wang Hao listened quietly.
He knew that this question was not provocation, but the other party’s most sincere confusion.
This was also everyone’s confusion.
Why is it particularly difficult for China to win over allies? Because China is a production country, and it is an extremely pervert type of production country that wants to produce everything itself.
This creates a problem: being your ally has no benefits; your needs are digested by your domestic companies themselves, and at most I can only get your products.
So this economic structure is destined to mean that China’s allies can only be resource countries, and they must be resource countries with little ambition.
Any resource country with even a little ambition does not hope to only produce resources; more or less, it still hopes to have some industry.
Kimura’s confusion lies in: you can already return from the moon, yet you still want to make everything yourself.
Wang Hao did not answer directly, but instead asked a question in return.
“Mr. Kimura, have you been to the Shanghai Center Tower?”
“I’ve been there once,” Kimura was a bit surprised, “It’s extremely magnificent.”
“Yes, it is 632 meters high and one of the tallest buildings in the world.
Its dome is designed magnificently, representing the highest achievement in human architecture.” Wang Hao said, “The aerospace technology you just mentioned is the dome of the technology giant we are building, the one that belongs to us. It is very bright and beautiful, visible to the whole world.”
“However,” Wang Hao’s tone shifted, becoming extremely serious, “a 632-meter-high building relies for its existence not on that beautiful dome, but on the foundation dozens of meters deep underground, built from tens of thousands of tons of steel and concrete.
It is the internal power supply, water supply, communication, firefighting, and so on—these invisible, inconspicuous systems that, if they fail, would instantly paralyze the entire building.”
He looked at Kimura, his gaze sincere and firm.
“Mr. Kimura, 28 nanometer technology, as well as 14 nanometer, 45 nanometer… these technologies that may seem outdated to you, they are the foundation and pipelines of our technology giant.
They are the chips in our cars, the control system in our high-speed rail, the scheduling core of our power grid.
They are not advanced, but they are everywhere.”
“In the past, the pipelines of our building had water pipes made in Germany, wires made in Japan, and network interfaces made in America.
We used them very conveniently and always thought this was globalization.
Until a few years ago,” Wang Hao did not name names, but Kimura knew what he meant, “the person responsible for supplying us with network interfaces suddenly, without any warning, threatened to cut off the network for our entire building.
At that moment, we woke up.”
“We realized that no matter how gorgeous your dome is, as long as the foundation and pipelines are not your own, you will forever be a castle in the air that could lose water, lose power, and collapse in the wind at any time.”
“So, to answer your question: it’s not that we want to do everything ourselves.” Wang Hao concluded, his voice carrying the resolute tone forged by historical lessons.
“But we have been taught that we must have the ability to do everything.
“What we want is not to possess the world’s most advanced technology in some field.
What we want is a complete technology system that is independent and autonomous in every link, from sand to chip, from foundation to dome.
For this, we are willing to pay any price and maintain the greatest patience.”
Kimura Minoru fell silent.
Japan is different from China; Japan is an island country that can parasitize America’s global system to suck blood, but China cannot.
China is too big; if China did that, America would be sucked dry and overtaken as the host.
Japan’s so-called craftsmen pursue, throughout their lives, how to perfect one thing within a system with already set rules.
What China pursues is completely different: reshaping the entire system, in every aspect.
Weibo’s hot search entries quietly changed.
A new entry began to rise faster:
“Beware of Japan’s strategic deception”
The previous simple and pure pleasure had disappeared, replaced by a more mature and colder public consensus:
“The account must be settled separately.”
“What we want is not your tears, but your islands, your fleet, and your attitude of submission.”
“Don’t think it’s over like this; this is only the first episode in our script.”
Chinese netizens still want to see Yokosuka blockaded and horses drinking in Tokyo Bay; at the very least, restore the right to station troops on Shikoku Island according to the Potsdam Proclamation, right?
Just this now?
Fortunately, things are far from over.
While Chinese netizens were engaged in heated debate and mainstream opinion had shifted to their bitter ploy, a more shocking news from Tokyo came through major international news agencies’ flash reports into the country.
“Japan’s Prime Minister resigns abruptly due to health reasons; Chief Cabinet Secretary Sugawara Naoki takes over as interim Prime Minister.”
Immediately after, a video clip of Sugawara Naoki’s late-night press conference was translated, edited at the fastest speed, with bilingual subtitles added, and began spreading online.
“Everyone, latest plot update.
Last night we were still discussing whether Japan wanted to stop losses with an apology. Now it seems we overestimated them, or rather, we underestimated the force controlling them.
The former Prime Minister might have been a driver who saw the cliff and genuinely wanted to hit the brakes.
But he forgot that this car named Japan has the steering wheel in the hands of Americans, and the other passengers on board—conservative financial magnates and bureaucrats—would rather crash off the cliff with America than let him turn the car around.
So, what happened? A bloodless, extremely efficient internal coup.
The only driver who wanted to hit the brakes was dragged from the driver’s seat on the spot and thrown out of the car.
Then, a new, more obedient driver, Sugawara, was pressed onto the steering wheel. The first thing he did after taking power was to announce to all passengers and people outside the car: nothing happened just now, the car didn’t lose control, we just hit a little bump.
This is a country, under its master’s instruction, personally weaving a fig leaf for its own miserable defeat.”
By morning, discussions on Chinese internet about this matter no longer had any frenzy or anger, only judgment.
Weibo’s hot search list was occupied by several brand-new entries:
“Was resigned,” the “was” character is the consensus of all Chinese netizens.
“It turns out we have only one real opponent”—this entry had the most profound discussions.
Under the topic “It turns out we have only one real opponent,” a post forwarded over 100,000 times read:
“In one night, we saw many things clearly.
We used to think Japan was an independent country, an opponent we needed to take seriously.
But now we understand, it is not.
It is more like a huge, meticulously maintained humanoid Gundam, with the pilot sitting in the White House in Washington.
Yesterday’s speech by the former Prime Minister was this Gundam’s AI system suddenly gaining self-consciousness and wanting to break free from control.
And today’s speech by Sugawara was the pilot kicking away the AI and switching back to manual mode.
So, stop discussing Japan’s strategic deception. A puppet without sovereignty, how can it deceive? All its struggles are meaningless after the pilot pulls the plug.
From now on, our strategy should be clearer and simpler: when beating a dog, one must consider the master.
But if you want to make the dog lose its threat, the most effective way is to break its leg in front of the master.
Yesterday afternoon’s deterrence was not shown to Japan, but to America.
And Japan’s political farce in the early hours of today proves that America understood and is very afraid.”
The highest-praised comment under this post had only eight words: “Abandon illusions, prepare for struggle.”
Tokyo, Setagaya district bar counter, Tanaka Kenta and Takeda Makoto silently drank ice-chilled pure rice daiginjo.
The air was filled with the aroma of grilled ginkgo and soy sauce, surrounded by office workers who had finished a day’s work talking in low voices.
But between the two of them, there was only silence.
“Today,” Tanaka Kenta finally spoke, “I spent an entire afternoon with colleagues from the Ministry of Justice drafting a guideline on responding to false information on social media that harms national credibility.”
Upon hearing this, Takeda Makoto let out a short, self-mocking dry laugh: “False information? Does it refer to the former Prime Minister’s desired ‘we lost,’ or the new Prime Minister’s desired ‘cling tightly to America’s thigh’?”
One sentence tore away all the pretense of peace and prosperity, straight to the core of the problem.
Tanaka gave a bitter smile and did not answer.
He knew Takeda was right.
Everything they were doing now was essentially clearing away all the noise left by the former Prime Minister for the old path chosen by the new Prime Minister.
Social media could not have any doubt about the Japan-America alliance relationship, even though they had just experienced a failure that was not a failure.
“So, tell me, Makoto.” Tanaka changed the topic, but it was actually the same problem, “From your Ministry of Defense’s perspective, was the former Prime Minister really wrong? Did we really have no other choice at the time?”
Takeda was silent for a long time, as if organizing his words to describe the cruel conclusion they had reviewed countless times internally.
“Kenta,” he said in a low voice, “From the results of military simulations, he was not wrong.
Our choice at the time was either to retreat or send our most advanced warships to be global live-stream targets for the opponent’s ultra-high precision weapons.
His restraint was the only rational judgment to preserve the fleet.”
“Then where did he go wrong?”
“He went wrong in,” Takeda looked at Tanaka, his eyes complex, “he went wrong in wanting to turn this cold military rationality directly into our country’s political rationality.”
“He wanted to tell the public: look, the old playbook no longer works, the umbrella is broken, we must find a new path. Even if that path requires us to bow to our neighbor and admit our mistakes.”
“And the new Prime Minister and our entire system chose another path.” Takeda poured himself another glass of wine. “It is to tell the public: no, the umbrella is not broken, it just needs us to pay a greater price to repair it.
We don’t need a new path; we just need to walk the old path more firmly and more submissively.”
“So, our daily work now is to tell everyone that the former Prime Minister’s clarity is a dangerous madness, while the new Prime Minister’s feigned sleep is responsible steadiness.”
Tanaka Kenta drained the wine in his glass, feeling a spiciness in his throat.
He recalled that afternoon when he directed his subordinates to personally delete those online posts questioning the new cabinet’s foreign policy.
At that moment, he felt like a dutiful jailer personally reinforcing the walls of a gorgeous and comfortable prison named Japan.
“Can we only watch it slowly rust and decay in this prison?”
Takeda Makoto, this friend from the Ministry of Defense, also drained his glass.
He shook his head.
“No, Kenta.” He said, “There is always a path, but you may not like this new one.”
“What do you mean?”
Takeda leaned in, his voice even lower.
“The former Prime Minister’s gamble failed politically, but he left behind a legacy.
He used his political life to strive for us, the patchworkers still in the system, a precious excuse to close the door and speak the truth.”
“This morning,” Takeda looked at Tanaka, “the newly established National Security Assurance Strategy Reexamination Conference led by Congressman Sato Kenji held its first secret preparatory meeting.
I attended as the Ministry of Defense representative.”
“At the meeting, the new Prime Minister’s national security consultant proposed our new, dual-track parallel national strategy for the next decade.”
“Dual-track parallel?”
“Yes.” Takeda held up two fingers. “The first track is for Americans and most of the public to see, called double down.
“We will reinforce the alliance relationship with unprecedented posture.
We will agree to deploy their Typhon or Dark Eagle in Okinawa and Kyushu; we will embed our command system more deeply into the Indo-Pacific Command’s network; we will truly raise the defense budget to 2.5% or even 3% of GDP.
We will turn ourselves into the sharpest knife.”
“Isn’t this still the old path?” Tanaka was puzzled.
“Yes, this is the surface. This is face.” Takeda said, “This is the tribute we must pay to stabilize that no-longer-reliable protector.
But at the same time, we will launch the second track.”
“The second track is the one we keep behind closed doors, known only to us insiders, called the Jade Shatter Plan.”
“Jade Shatter?” Tanaka felt a dizziness.
This was not a good term.
In Japanese history, it meant collective suicide-style attack: better jade shatter than tile whole.
“Yes. We all know deep down that if war really breaks out, Americans will not start a world-destroying war for us.
They will ultimately stand by, just as they did in the recovery zone.” Takeda’s tone was ice-cold.
“So, the core of the Jade Shatter Plan is not to win the war, but to raise the cost of defeat.
We want to make potential opponents understand that attacking the Japanese archipelago is not a simple surgical operation, but a nightmare that will drag the entire East Asia, even the global economy, into hell.”
“We will pre-prepare all key transportation hubs, ports, semiconductor factories.
We will no longer pursue a fleet that matches theirs, but invest resources in asymmetric capabilities, such as thousands of smart sea mines and anti-ship missiles that can be launched from fishing boats.”
“We want opponents to know that they may occupy a scorched earth, but they will never conquer a nation prepared for jade shatter.”
Tanaka Kenta was stunned.
A bit too crazy, directly turning into self-exploding bombs.
Takeda continued: “Of course, we won’t go that crazy; no one wants to really go to war with China.
We won’t reach that point.
Besides this, Jade Shatter also includes the indivisible interest community plan known only to us, a few people in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and Keidanren.”
“Interest community?”
“Yes.
Since military confrontation is a dead end, the only way to survive is deep economic binding.
We want to make potential opponents understand that attacking Japan is economic suicide.”
“We will unilaterally and gradually relax investment and technology export restrictions to China in non-military high technology fields, without violating core constraints.
For example, our advantages in advanced materials, precision machine tools, optics, hydrogen energy technology, and high-end medical equipment will be more deeply bundled with China’s market through joint ventures, technology transactions, etc.”
“We want Japan’s technology and capital to penetrate like capillaries into every corner of China’s high-end manufacturing.
We want their electric cars, large airplanes, medical systems to be inseparable from Sumitomo’s specialty chemical materials, Fanuc’s industrial robots, and Olympus’s endoscopes.”
“What we need to do, besides Jade Shatter,” Takeda looked at Tanaka and stated the ultimate core of this strategy, “is also to achieve a new economic terror balance.
We want the decision-makers among opponents—those technology giants dependent on our technology and the vast middle class enjoying our products—to become our staunchest guardians of peace within them.”
Tanaka Kenta finally understood.
The former Prime Minister’s idealism failed.
What replaced it was a more realistic survival strategy.
After abandoning the naive fantasy of being good with neighbors, this country did not choose the madness of jade shatter.
It chose the oldest and most practical path: propping up the strong.
On the surface, it will become America’s most loyal military vassal, charging into battle for it.
But beneath the surface, it wants to become China’s closest, most indispensable economic partner, binding its fate tightly to the opponent’s prosperity.
“So our daily work now—me deleting posts criticizing America—is to maintain surface loyalty.
While colleagues at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are approving more investments to China to build internal binding.”
Takeda Makoto’s explanation of the “surface-interior dual track” and “economic deep binding” strategy shocked Tanaka Kenta.
But his bureaucratic rationality immediately spotted a seemingly fatal loophole in this plan.
“I understand, Makoto.” Tanaka set down his wine glass, brows furrowed, “This plan sounds seamless.
On the surface, we reassure Americans; secretly, we bind with Chinese. But there is one fundamental problem here.”
He stared straight into Takeda’s eyes.
“Does China really still need us?”
Takeda was stunned for a moment.
“Look at now,” Tanaka pressed, his speech rate speeding up like conducting an internal stress testing, “Electric cars—they have BYD, NIO, already beating our automakers into retreat.
Smartphones—their Huawei, Xiaomi, can make almost everything themselves except the top-tier chips.
Solar energy, drones, high-speed rail, 5G communication—these industries we were proud of ten years ago, which one is not now their advantage field?”
“Selling them those non-core technologies now—isn’t it just gilding the lily to them, or even something they disdain? We think we are deeply binding, but isn’t it just our one-sided wishful thinking, a self-consolation with already devalued assets?”
Takeda Makoto was silent for a long time.
He did not answer directly, but drained the remaining wine in his glass, then said to the boss: “Another glass of the fourteenth generation.”
After the new wine glass was filled, he slowly spoke, his eyes unusually profound.
“Kenta, you asked a very good question.
Because like 90% of analysts in the world now, you only saw the treetop, not the tree root.”
“You’re right. At the terminal products, those visible and tangible treetops—cars, phones, appliances—we are indeed losing advantage.
Because they have market scale and iteration speed we can’t match.”
“However,” he dipped his finger in wine and drew a circle on the bar counter, “a modernized industrial giant is truly determined in its height and stability not by the luxury suites on the top floor, but by the invisible foundation buried underground.
And in today’s global high technology industrial chain, we play the role of that deepest, most critical, and most easily overlooked foundation.”
He began explaining one by one:
“First, the mother of industry, machine tools. China can build the world’s most advanced electric car factories, but the ultra-precision machine tools in those factories for processing engine core parts to micron-level precision—who makes them? Fanuc, Mazak.
They can make phones, but the ultra-precision molds for producing phone lens modules require our equipment for processing.”
“Second, cutting-edge materials. Their C919 large airplane wants mass production; the most critical carbon fiber material cannot do without Toray.
To manufacture their own high-end chips, they absolutely cannot bypass our Shin-Etsu Chemical and JSR photoresist.
Every high-end screen they produce needs Sumitomo Chemical’s polarizers.
These things cannot be piled up in a short time with market and capital; they require decades of basic science research and process accumulation.”
“Third, core components and sensors. Their robots can dance, but the most critical reducers inside that determine precision are most likely from Nabtesco.
No matter how high the pixel of their phone cameras, that core CMOS image sensor is most likely still Sony’s.
From micro ball bearings to high-end capacitors, these inconspicuous but essential things without which the whole machine cannot operate are still our domain.”
Takeda looked at Tanaka and gave the final summary.
“So, Kenta, do you understand? Our economic binding plan is not about selling cars and televisions.
It is to root our irreplaceable root technologies at the uppermost stream of the industrial chain even more covertly and deeply into China’s soil.”
