Japan’s quest for rare earth self-sufficiency and its drive to decouple from Chinese supply chains have prompted the government to consider building a dedicated deep-sea mining vessel to recover minerals from the Pacific Ocean floor.
Local media reported that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s special committee on ocean development will soon present a draft proposal to the Takaichi administration, calling for unspecified project funding.
While the initiative will face technological and financial hurdles, analysts say developing the natural resources within Japan’s maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is crucial to the country’s economy and national security.
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“Japan is very poor in natural resources, but we have the sixth-largest EEZ in the world and under all that ocean is a great deal of the resources that we need to power our economy,” said Morinosuke Kawaguchi, a futurist and innovation expert.
“These minerals are so rare that it is important to develop ways to exploit these resources.”
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Tokyo’s urgency to cut its dependence on imported strategic minerals led the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology to deploy a research ship in February to the remote island of Minamitorishima to retrieve rare earth sediments from a depth of 5,700 metres (18,700 feet).