Japan To Limit Foreign Ownership of Firms in Its IT, Telecom Sectors (reuters.com) 64
Japan's government said on Monday that high-tech industries will be added to a list of businesses for which foreign ownership of Japanese firms is restricted. From a report: The new rule, effective Aug. 1, comes amid heightening pressure from the United States in dealing with cyber-security risks and technological transfers involving China. The Japanese government made no mention of specific countries or companies that will be impacted by applying existing foreign ownership restrictions to the IT and telecoms industries.
The announcement came on the same day visiting U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are holding talks in Tokyo on trade and other issues. The United States has warned countries against using Chinese technology, saying Huawei Technologies could be used by Beijing to spy on the West. China and Huawei have strongly rejected the allegations.
The announcement came on the same day visiting U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are holding talks in Tokyo on trade and other issues. The United States has warned countries against using Chinese technology, saying Huawei Technologies could be used by Beijing to spy on the West. China and Huawei have strongly rejected the allegations.
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So we've heard from the Trump wing here. Any other opinions?
Re: plotectionism (Score:2)
I wonder if I own anything electronic without Chinese electronics in it? Hmm, the non-electrical stuff seems suspect too. Alright citizens, turn in your commie tainted goods!
Communists! Ops... (Score:2)
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Wrong country, not China or North Korea...
Which made it even more amusing, when Trump whacked in a long drive, and then exclaimed:
"Charlie don't golf!"
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Yeah, but he only said that because he thinks Checkpoint Charlie is the name of a sand trap.
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I'll give you two guesses why Japan is doing this. If your answers don't start with: Chi-Kong and China you've failed to understand just what's happening over in that region currently.
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Buy Cisco instead! (Score:1)
US-based Cisco can't be used to spy on the West nor any other countries.
[p.s.: I had my fingers crossed.]
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The usual suspects hate the Japanese because they try to preserve their culture.
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They're culture is in a severe demographic decline. Unless their robotics capabilities increase at an astonishing rate in the next few generations there won't be much of a culture to preserve. Besides a lot of their modern culture was imposed on them by an American general, American political scientists and American diplomats, with a gun pointed to their head. Oh yes, that was after the Meiji Emperor brought in every Western expert he could get his hands on to pull Japan out of a divided medieval socio-eco
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"They are culture is in a severe"...
Re:Good for Japan! (Score:5, Interesting)
Its important to note that the Meiji Restoration was a defensive move by the emperor to try and avoid what they saw happen to other regions. The Japanese saw what happened when the Chinese and various parts of Asia tried to push back against the West coming in; they got "flattened" as you said, and turned into colonies. The emperor realized that there was something about how the West was doing things that he felt the Japanese needed to figure out as well or risk becoming a colony of another country at some point. So they adopted Western culture, invited Westerners into the country, sent their kids off to Western schools; all to steal information and avoid ending up a colony. Who knows if it would have worked cause then the WWs happened and Communist rose up and Japan became US's "best friend."
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"Steal information"... It's sad how the narrative has turned from "we had a superior culture and others decided to emulate it".
Any time a good idea enters the public domain (e.g. is used in a product) and others adopt it, if they are from the same country it's just the natural evolution of the art and healthy competition, if they are foreign it's intellectual property theft and totally unfair.
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Companies should be controlled by their owners.
Neither a company or a government should be spying on people.
It's silly, really... (Score:3)
Many/most nations with international secret services would be inclined to use domestic corporations to forward their own interests, just as powerful local corporations learn to use their governments to forward their interests. Expecting otherwise is a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.
Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, stick your head in doo-doo, but don't do what we do.
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That's probably why it is so easy to pressure most of them to do it. Since the side effects benefit them directly.
Not sure why there are so many Europeans who get mad at US requests for them to buy European gear. I guess it is the sad result of letting them use American "secret services" for so long; they're so used to being client states, they get confused when they're told not to!
Re:It's silly, really... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is like Trump is simply too stupid to realise the US will be excluded as well because Japan trusts them less than the China. You kind of know where you stand with the government of China but with the USA, it changes from quarter to quarter depending upon which corporate cabal is paying the biggest bribes and most highly placed insiders at that time. It is expected the USA will break it's word from quarter to quarter depending upon whom is paying who for what, foreign or domestic, insane stuff. Every will go that way to ensure no foreign government can hit the off switch to essential digital infrastructure and the USA is to be trusted the least.
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And why do you think that? Do you not understand how the intelligence sharing agreements work? All of these countries in Five Eyes, NATO etc intentionally use each other to commit surveillance acts that are otherwise illegal. NSA aren't allowed to spy on Americans so they use GHCQ to do it. It never was a question of whether anyone trusts America or not. It's a question of whether they want to save face and plausible deniability. I'd say you guys are naive but the existence of these practices has been leake
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It is like Trump is simply too stupid to realise the US will be excluded as well because Japan trusts them less than the China.
Well he can't figure out that exports are a concession and imports make us richer, so why would you expect much reasoning and understanding otherwise?
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You kind of know where you stand with the government of China
Hahaha! Sigh... good one.
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It is like Trump is simply too stupid to realise the US will be excluded as well because Japan trusts them less than the China.
Emotionally charged feelings between the Chinese and Japanese in both directions far transcend the bland economic relationship between Japan and the US. I'm not sure Trump truly understands this dynamic, but the Chinese and Japanese definitely understand the long-standing cultural adversarial relationship between these two geographic neighbors.
Capitalistic theory (Score:2)
Many/most nations with international secret services would be inclined to use domestic corporations
Yes and no. The intelligence agencies certainly would, and force a load of vulnerabilities on those firms. Politicians are brainwashed to be in capitalistic heaven, where the cheapest and most polluting company is way more important than society itself. Those companies are always situated in lower-wage countries.
ARM (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok so give back to Europe ARM...
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News flash: Brexit.
Not yours.
Also, a lot of the work is actually done in the US.
The US has a much greater stake in this than "Europe."
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And the UK and US have a "special relationship" that if anything the Brits will need to rely even more on now that it seems a hard brexit is inevitable.
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The US has a much greater stake in this than "Europe."
The US has no stake in it. They provide a handful of jobs. 100% of money generated by ARM goes outside of the USA save for minor expenses of employee salary. 25% to the UK, 75% to Japan.
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Ok so give back to Europe ARM...
Why? The UK isn't being protectionist. Self destructive definitely but protectionism isn't about the well being of another country.
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Lol, backfire burning, USA? (Score:1)
Because I don't know if you realize: That means no Cisco either!
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I don't know if you realize this, but Cisco is popular in no country.
Paranoid Americans buy European networking gear. This was already true by the late 90s.
If Japan was stronger in that area, they'd also be a preferred option. That's what this is about; shifting sales from China to Japan. This at least sets up the rules to make that a reasonable option in the current trade climate.
Cisco is preferred by big corporations, because they have a sales department that is good at schmoozing and sliming. Japanese IT
ha ha (Score:1)