The empty modern promise of sovereign capability

The latest “vital” manufacturing industry supposedly in need of government help to build ‘sovereign capability’ is semiconductors. Semiconductors are an essential component in electronic devices, from communications, computing and cars through to military systems, healthcare and clean energy.

" Sovereign capability in semiconductors is a largely empty promise. There are four fallacies that undermine the plausibility of the sovereign capability idea”

COVID-19 wreaked havoc on global semiconductor supply chains. And with China as a growing major global supplier of semiconductors, and production concentrated in Northeast Asia, the United States has taken the bold step of moving to subsidise its semiconductor industry — thus “Japanising its industrial policy”, the Financial Times has said. Some suggest US partners in Asia, like Australia, Japan and other countries, should now do the same.

There’s a major problem with this strategy: it won’t work. Sovereign capability in semiconductors is a largely empty promise.

There are four fallacies that undermine the plausibility of the whole sovereign capability idea.

The first is the “made locally” fallacy. The notion our supply chain challenges are solely the result of international trade does not stack up. This fallacy was exposed during COVID-19. Plenty of the things people have struggled to buy during the pandemic were made locally. Making things locally does not guarantee a resilient supply chain.

The second fallacy is the input fallacy. Things we think we “produce” locally actually include many inputs that come from overseas.

Take the simple surgical face mask as an example. Face masks have at least four components: the medical grade fabric, the elastic, the thin metal strip that bends over your nose and the stitching that holds it together. Having genuine sovereign capability in the production of face masks means being able to produce all four of these things domestically. And then assemble them domestically, too.

And that’s just a simple face mask. A ventilator has more than 240 components, all of which have their own array of inputs as well. To be sovereignly capable, a country needs to make every single one of them.

The third fallacy is the “just in case” fallacy. A new catch phrase of politicians is that we need to move away from “just in time” business models towards “just in case”. Requiring businesses to hold buffer stocks, they argue, is a great way to make our supply chains more resilient.

It’s also a way to make countries poor. Business owners will tell you stockpiling inventory costs money. Requiring local businesses to hold buffers in case a once-in-a-100-year pandemic strikes would make those businesses uncompetitive.

The bigger question for just-in-case supply chains is: just in case of what? If local cafes need to prepare for a once in 100-year pandemic, why not the zombie apocalypse, World War III or world-destroying asteroids? Where do we draw the line?

The fourth fallacy is the “essential business” fallacy. The idea of having sovereign capability in producing essential goods and services assumes we know what an essential good or service is. Many governments around the world have had three years to agree domestically on what constitutes an essential business. Most still don’t have an answer.

What constitutes essential depends on the crisis. Hand sanitiser is essential during a pandemic but pretty low on the list during World War III. And what about inputs? Many governments designated personal protective equipment (PPE) as essential during COVID-19 - but not the components used to make it. Governments designated ventilators as essential - but not the machines used to treat sleep apnoea, even though they are essentially the same machines ...

This article was originally published on the East Asia Forum

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