Will a Ship War Be the New Chip War?

US tapping allies Japan and South Korea in bid to counter China's naval dominance

- Walter Sim

TOKYO/SEOUL - Will ships, like chips, become a major battleground for great power supremacy?

The United States, whose shipbuilding industry now has a virtually non-existent global market share of 0.1 per cent, desperately wants to make up lost ground on China.

The catch: China commands a whopping 53.3 per cent market share, up from below 5 per cent in 2000.

US President Donald Trump told a joint session of Congress in March that he wants to "resurrect the American shipbuilding industry", including commercial and military shipbuilding, to boost the country's defence industrial base.

Given its limitations, however, the US is seeking to corral support from its East Asian security allies Japan and South Korea, which are major shipbuilding nations with 13.1 per cent and 29.1 per cent of the global shipbuilding market respectively. They are also already working with the US Navy on the maintenance, repair and overhaul of its vessels.

Indeed, the Pentagon had already begun wooing shipbuilders in South Korea as early as in February 2024, under the administration of then President Joe Biden, when then US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro visited South Korean shipyards and urged them to invest in America.

In a strong signal of the intent to rejuvenate the US' shipbuilding industry with the help of allies under the Trump administration, US Navy Secretary John Phelan visited Tokyo and Seoul from April 27 to 30, his first trip overseas after his appointment in March.

There are parallels between this latest endeavour and US ambitions to curtail Chinese development of high-end semiconductors - and, by extension, artificial intelligence prowess.

The American effort on chips has been backed by its allies, which have, among other things, restricted exports of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China in the name of "economic security".