CIGS Workshop："Securing Resources for the Future:Geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations in Japanese and French approaches to mining seabed minerals" by Mr. John Seaman

Presentation
Presentation by Mr. Seaman（PDF：1.0MB）

Workshop's outline
Title："Securing Resources for the Future:Geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations in Japanese and French approaches to mining seabed minerals"
Speaker： Mr. John Seaman （International Research Fellow, CIGS / Research Fellow, the Center for Asian Studies, the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) ）

Outline of the speech
Securing access to mineral resources has long been a central pillar of industrial policy both in Japan and France, but possible shifts in the geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape are bringing new impetus to this issue. In recent decades, trade liberalization and the development of global markets have allowed for the world's major powers to obtain resources without resorting to the imperialist practices of the past - the so-called "liberal capitalism" model. But the increasing power of emerging economies such as China, which adheres to a more state-driven form of capitalism, calls into question the direction of the liberal market-based system. As emerging economies increasingly drive demand for the world's natural resources, concerns over the shape of the global system for procuring natural resources is driving many countries to increasingly look for a security of supply within their own borders. China's recent actions in disrupting the trade of rare earth elements proved to be an inflection for political action in the so-called "critical raw materials", ultimately spurring on natural resource policy into previously underexplored dimensions. In this context, renewed attention is being given to researching seabed mineral mining. A race for leadership in this field is now under way. This workshop will present initial findings of an effort to better understand the political and economic issues at stake in seabed mining. It will focus primarily on comparisons between Japanese and French approaches in this field.

CIGS Workshop is a presentation of the progress for the study which CIGS researchers are doing. They take comments from other researchers, advisors, and outside commentators, and they make use of them for their future study.