{"id":21412,"date":"2026-05-13T06:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/21412\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:06:10","slug":"why-japan-must-lead-the-next-era-of-shipping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/21412\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Japan Must Lead the Next Era of Shipping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly all of Japan’s imports and exports, measured by cargo tonnage, move by sea. More than half of domestic long-distance transport over 500 kilometers is also carried by sea, while coastal shipping accounts for roughly 40% of domestic freight.<\/p>\n

For an island nation surrounded by the sea, shipping is quite literally Japan’s lifeline. And how to maintain and develop this industry healthily and sustainably is a question that will shape the country’s future.<\/p>\n

Yet Japan’s maritime sector has faced two major challenges in recent years: a severe shortage of seafarers and the need to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.<\/p>\n

A Shrinking Workforce<\/p>\n

The first challenge is labor. Japanese shipping companies currently operate around 3,500 oceangoing vessels, about 95% of which are registered under flags of convenience in countries such as Panama and Liberia. In the early 1970s, there were more than 50,000 Japanese seafarers. Today, that number has fallen to roughly 2,000, or about 3.5% of the total.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most vessels now operate with mixed crews, relying heavily on foreign seafarers, including many from the Philippines. This raises an important national security question. In an emergency, how reliably could such a system be maintained?<\/p>\n

Japan’s domestic coastal fleet, by contrast, consists of about 5,200 vessels and roughly 22,000 seafarers. Because of a 1966 Cabinet agreement premised on the use of Japanese crews for domestic shipping, the employment of foreign seafarers is, in principle, not permitted.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cranes stand in a shipbuilding district along the coast of Tamano, Okayama Prefecture. (\u00a9Sankei)<\/p>\n

As of 2023, 26% of coastal shipping seafarers were 60 or older. Human error, including inadequate watchkeeping and improper vessel handling, is said to account for 80% of maritime accidents. Given Japan’s rapidly declining birthrate and shrinking population, there is no easy way to resolve the labor shortage.<\/p>\n

A realistic solution is the automation and eventual unmanning of vessels. In 2020, the Nippon Foundation launched a project in cooperation with a wide range of companies in shipbuilding, shipping, communications, and related fields, intending to make 50% of the domestic coastal vessels unmanned by 2040.<\/p>\n

Lifelines to Remote Islands<\/p>\n

In March this year, the project unveiled a world-first demonstration: four vessels, including a newly built coastal container ship, were directed via satellite communications from two onshore support centers, allowing multiple vessels to operate autonomously simultaneously.<\/p>\n

The four ships sailed routes such as Kobe Port to Tokyo Port using Level 4 autonomous navigation technology, which requires no human intervention. They also carried out berthing and unberthing operations. All four vessels have passed inspections by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as autonomous ships and have already begun commercial operations.<\/p>\n

Japan has more than 14,000 islands, of which 417 were inhabited as of 2020. Since around 1955, population outflows from these islands have led to the continued downsizing or abolition of shipping routes connecting them with the mainland. Falling passenger numbers and a shortage of seafarers could accelerate this trend.<\/p>\n

The government has designated 71 islands in 15 areas as “Specified Remote Inhabited Border Islands,” which serve as bases for the country’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, and has begun providing financial support. The government is reportedly preparing to add six islands in four areas, including Niijima and Shikinejima in Tokyo, to the list. Autonomous vessels could help slow depopulation on remote islands.<\/p>\n


\n\"Japan<\/a>
\nCleaner Ships, Stronger Security<\/p>\n

The second challenge is decarbonization. Around the world, climate change is intensifying torrential rains, wildfires and other disasters. That urgency led to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.<\/p>\n

In response, the International Maritime Organization has set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping to net zero by around 2050. The Japanese government has also declared its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by the same period.<\/p>\n

Shipping alone emits about 920 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, or roughly 2.5% of global emissions. Several countries are developing vessels powered by next-generation fuels such as ammonia and methanol, but the focus has largely been on large oceangoing ships. In light of this, the Nippon Foundation also launched the Coastal Shipping Hydrogen Utilization Consortium in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"\"The venue of COP30, held from November 10 to 22, 2025, in Bel\u00e9m, a city near the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. (\u00a9Kyodo)<\/p>\n

It brings together operators, shipyards, manufacturers, and others to develop hydrogen-powered zero-emission, the ultimate clean energy source. A Hydrogen Engine R&D Center, which will serve as the research base for this effort, was completed two years ago in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture. The goal is to put the technology into practical use by 2030.<\/p>\n

From the standpoint of combating global warming, the development of zero-emission vessels is both essential and urgent. Progress in this field would also make Japan less vulnerable to crises like the current one, in which escalating tensions in the Middle East and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz have spiked crude oil prices.<\/p>\n

Both the autonomous shipping and hydrogen vessel projects have brought together a broad range of participants, from shipbuilders, shipping firms, and marine equipment manufacturers to trading houses and companies in AI, communications, and automobiles.<\/p>\n

Japan Must Lead<\/p>\n

With government cooperation also advancing, an all-Japan framework is now taking shape, supported by a broad public-private partnership that should help move these projects forward.<\/p>\n

In recent years, surveys have shown that more people\u2014especially younger generations who will shape Japan’s future\u2014are anxious about where the country is headed. At the root of that anxiety is a fundamental question. In an increasingly unstable world, can Japan continue to sustain the basic systems and infrastructure on which society depends?<\/p>\n

Shipping is one such core infrastructure. The shortage of seafarers and the development of new fuels are challenges shared across the international community. As a maritime nation, Japan should be at the forefront of efforts to address them.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/p>\n

Author: Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of the Nippon Foundation\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Read this article in Japanese<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\t\tContinue Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly all of Japan’s imports and exports, measured by cargo tonnage, move by sea. More than half of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2124,8,16935,33,9115,16936,167,16937,1714],"class_list":{"0":"post-21412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-economy-tech","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-maritime-security","11":"tag-nihon","12":"tag-nippon-foundation","13":"tag-sasakawa","14":"tag-shipping","15":"tag-shipping-industry","16":"tag-trade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}