Cutting-edge technology is increasingly central to the Japan-U.S. alliance.
That’s only logical given the centrality of that tech to 21st-century geopolitical competition and the leading role that the two countries play in developing and producing it. While the alliance has arguably never been stronger and the two governments are working together to coordinate policies in this sector, some warning lights are warming up.
Japan-U.S. cooperation on high-tech is a given. The allies are two of the top three global investors in science and technology research, and hold similar positions for most other indicators of technological prowess. (China is the other member of the top three.) They occupy critical nodes — bottlenecks, really — in global supply chains for key technologies, providing outsize influence over their production and, ultimately, access to them.