Chinese spies stealing Japanese industrial secrets in boardrooms. Chip smugglers ferrying Nvidia¡¯s prized artificial intelligence semiconductors via Japan. Drug gangs quietly slipping fentanyl across Â鶹´«Ã½ borders to a U.S. opioid crisis.
Across a range of industries, Â鶹´«Ã½ economic-security vulnerabilities have been on display in a slew of recent incidents. The cases show how foreign actors increasingly see Japan as an attractive target ¡ª and, in some instances, a convenient gateway ¡ª for espionage and other illicit activities.
That¡¯s helping drive Â鶹´«Ã½ most ambitious economic-security push in years under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a longtime advocate of stronger safeguards against such threats. Her administration is on the cusp of launching what¡¯s been billed as the Japanese equivalent to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS)?in an effort to broaden and intensify reviews of overseas funds eyeing local targets.
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