Can Water Become a Strategic Resource for Japan? — The Potential of a Non-Military, Condition-Based Chokepoint"

While debates on decarbonization and environmental protection are often framed in moral terms, industrial activity and state governance continue to operate under structural constraints shaped by resources, technology, and institutions. This paper examines water as one such constraint, focusing on its emerging strategic relevance in an advanced technological society centered on semiconductors and data centers. The central hypothesis is that water can function as a non-military, long-term strategic resource without reliance on coercive measures such as supply disruption or sanctions. Instead, strategic relevance emerges through the design of usage conditions, institutional frameworks, and operational capabilities that shape state capacity and international bargaining space. The paper argues that Japan may possess a distinctive form of such capacity by combining high initial water quality, stable hydrological conditions, advanced ultrapure water management, and strong institutional credibility. Rather than advocating the weaponization or exclusionary control of water, this study reframes water governance as an issue of institutional design and long-term state capability, with implications for future technological and policy choices.