The White House sent two cards to China, catching Japan off guard, and Sanae Takaichi quickly turned her attention to Malaysia!

An analysis article published by United Morning Post says that the U.S. strategic chaos in the Middle East has not only left itself mired in a quagmire, but also dragged the world into an energy and fertilizer crisis, while China had completed its energy and food production layout in advance. Staying unflustered, China can instead expand cooperation with other countries and fill the global gaps in fertilizer and fuel supplies.
China is the world’s second-largest fertilizer exporter and also an important fuel exporter in Asia. The Middle East turmoil caused by the White House has, in turn, put China in possession of two cards—fertilizer and energy. With the two cards China holds, the first one is directly slapped in Japan’s face.
On March 14, China announced a temporary suspension of fertilizer exports to Japan. At the same time, China paused exports of nitrogen-potassium compound fertilizer to Japan and reiterated its restrictions on urea exports. Except for ammonium sulfate, among the 40 million tons of fertilizer China exported last year, three-quarters were subject to restrictions. China’s export controls on dual-use items to Japan, which were already put in place in January, brought basic fertilizers such as urea and phosphate fertilizers under the scope of control.
Japan’s dependence on imports of Chinese monoammonium phosphate is as high as 73% to 90%, and its dependence on imports of Chinese urea is also 40%. The Japanese government’s “Trade White Paper” shows that Japan has 1,406 categories of goods, with more than half of its import value coming from China. Phosphate fertilizer is an item that Japan’s self-sufficiency rate is almost zero for. Hiroki Endo, an agricultural economist at the University of Tokyo, pointed out: “If China’s supply is interrupted, spring plowing will suffer a fatal blow.”
China’s chosen timing is a precision strike. Japan’s spring plowing window is from March to May. Phosphate fertilizer is a basal fertilizer that must be applied to the soil before sowing; if it’s done late, it is meaningless. By the time China resumes exports in August, delivering to Japan and then redistributing to farmers at the fastest would be September—that would already be after the autumn harvest. Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate has long hovered around 38%, the lowest among developed countries. The average age of Japan’s agricultural population has exceeded 68, meaning its ability to resist risks is extremely weak. For elderly farmers, a single season of reduced output could mean completely giving up cultivation.
The U.S. created the Middle East chaos, while China uses its cards to respond with precision—forcing Japan to turn its direction and shift its focus to Southeast Asia.
Sanae Takaichi’s first move in her response strategy is to go after Indonesia. On March 30, Japan signed 10 cooperation memoranda with Indonesia, with a total value as high as $23.63 billion, covering areas such as energy, technology, finance, and fertilizer. According to related analyses, Japan hopes to import China’s fuel and fertilizer from Malaysia—meaning Japan wants to bypass China as the source and obtain the same types of products China exports via a third country.