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July 20, 2025
 

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SUPPLY CHAINS

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's Tokyo office. An investigation into the cause of the health issues is underway, with partner companies attempting to recall products that could include the batch of beni kōji said to have caused kidney problems.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 4, 2024
Kobayashi Pharma's wide supply chain complicates search for tainted products
Looking at the overall market, one study showed that around 33,000 companies have sold and distributed products using the firm's red yeast rice.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden meet at the White House on Jan. 13, 2023. Kishida will hold talks with Biden in Washington on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2024
Japan, U.S. and Philippines eye cooperation on mineral supply chains
Japanese and U.S. officials think that security cooperation with the Philippines is important for responding to potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait.
Akira Amari, a senior Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, says Nippon Steel’s acquisition of United States Steel would help counter China’s dominance in steel-making.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 2, 2024
Japanese lawmaker says U.S. steel deal would help counter China risks
The $14.1 billion deal would be a win-win for both companies and both economies, said former minister Akira Amari.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 28, 2024
Xi slams technological barriers during Dutch premier’s visit
The U.S. is urging the Netherlands to stop ASML from servicing and repairing sensitive chipmaking equipment purchased by Chinese clients.
The Dali cargo vessel that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse in Baltimore, Maryland, on Tuesday
BUSINESS
Mar 27, 2024
Baltimore’s freak bridge collapse reverberates from cars to coal
The aftermath of the bridge’s collapse throws another spotlight on the fragile nature of global supply chains.
A Zara clothing store in Brussels on November 2022. Inditex is an outlier among big clothing retailers in not publishing details of the factories from which it sources.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 12, 2024
Zara owner Inditex faces pressure from investors on supply chain disclosure
Regulators and investors want transparency from clothing retailers, to prove supply chains are free of forced labor and workers are paid decent wages.
Many countries including the U.S. and China are prioritizing domestic production and shortening supply chains to enhance economic self-reliance — but they are doing so at the risk of fueling systemic instability and intensifying great-power tensions.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 10, 2024
Economic self-reliance is a dangerous delusion
Countries around the world have given high priority to shortening supply chains, rebuilding domestic production capacity and diversifying suppliers.
A chip taken from a smartphone. The U.S. is urging the Netherlands to stop ASML from servicing and repairing sensitive chipmaking equipment that Chinese clients purchased before limits on sales of those devices were put into place this year.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 7, 2024
U.S. urges allies to squeeze China further on chip technology
Washington's latest push is partly aimed at plugging holes in export controls it has levied over the past two years.
The U.S and Japan are working together to secure a stable semiconductor supply chain and maintain their leading position in this critical technology amid concerns over China.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 5, 2024
Semiconductors are back to center stage in the Japan-U.S. alliance
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of semiconductors to the 21st century. They’re everywhere and in every digital item.
There is a global trend toward economic bifurcation with the U.S. and China leading the charge — and multinational solutions are needed to address the new challenges.
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2024
The inexorable movement toward a divided global economy
Efforts to protect national economies from threats require multinational solutions. Chains are only as strong as their weakest link.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 24, 2024
Chip giant TSMC shifts away from hot spot Taiwan with Japan plant
The chipmaker's new plant in Kumamoto will boost the resilience of global supplies of the crucial hardware, founder Morris Chang told an opening ceremony.
Mining magnate Dan Gertler in Congo in 2012
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 20, 2024
China's dominance of EV metals prompts U.S. to revisit stockpile 'panic button'
Budget cuts have shrunk U.S. strategic reserves to record lows, leaving it facing shortages of the raw materials needed to execute an energy transition.
Pills move through a sorting machine at a pharmaceutical plant in Visakhapatnam, India. A recent report shows one Indian firm using suppliers with ties to China’s military industry, questionable track records on safety and bases in Xinjiang.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 6, 2024
U.S. taps Indian pharma, but supply chains still lead back to China
A recent report shows one Indian firm using suppliers with ties to China’s military industry, questionable track records on safety and bases in Xinjiang.
The People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Sciences had used an open-source standard known as RISC-V to reduce malfunctions in chips for cloud computing and smart cars.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 5, 2024
China bets on open-source chips as U.S. export controls mount
RISC-V is free to use and has a simpler outline, often leading to more energy-efficient chips, and users can build atop the framework to suit their needs.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s new factory in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture, in May 2023
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Jan 29, 2024
Can Japan again master semiconductors to relive its glory days?
Competition in the sector is fierce, with many countries pushing to develop their own capabilities and insulate supply chains from geopolitical tensions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meet in Beijing in April last year.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 25, 2024
With China in mind, EU aims to toughen rules on foreign trade and investment
The package includes requiring member states to potentially prevent foreign direct investments that may pose a risk to the bloc’s security.
The SK Hynix factory in Dalian specializes in 3D NAND flash memory used in smartphones and other devices. NAND accounts for an increasing portion of the company’s revenue, around 27% of which comes from China.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 23, 2024
U.S. chip battle with China catches South Korea in the crossfire
Korean firms have to balance relations with both countries — one, a source of cutting-edge chipmaking technology and the other, the world's largest chip market.
The rupture of one of the world's busiest shipping routes has exposed the vulnerability of China's export-reliant economy to supply snarls and external demand shocks.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 22, 2024
Red Sea crisis pressures China's exporters as shipping delays mount
Further Red Sea disruptions would pile pressure on a struggling economy already contending with a property crisis and weak consumer demand.
A toy gun is assembled at an Aequs toy manufacturing facility in the city of Belgaum in India.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 16, 2024
Infrastructure hurdles hinder toy manufacturers' shift from China
That other countries struggle to match China for efficiency is limiting firms' efforts to shift to lower cost bases and raising the risk of higher toy prices in the future.
The continued demand for and access to banned Nvidia chips underlines the lack of good alternatives for Chinese firms despite the nascent development of rival products from Huawei and others.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 15, 2024
China's military and government acquire Nvidia chips despite ban
The sales by largely unknown Chinese suppliers highlight the difficulties Washington faces.
Japanese markets brace for triple whammy if opposition wins big
A Sanseito campaign van in Shinjuku. The populist party is gaining ground and challenging the more centrist parties.
Sunken WWII Japanese warship Teruzuki found off Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands. A team from the U.S. nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust has discovered the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki on the deep seabed off the Solomon Islands as the 80th anniversary of the war's end approaches.
Living conditions index hits lowest level in 15 years in Japan
The share of respondents to a Bank of Japan quarterly survey in June who said they have become worse off came to 61.0%, up 5.1 percentage points from the previous survey.
In Upper House race, younger voters in Tokyo turn to DPP for new direction
The Tokyo district has the highest number of candidates in the 2025 Upper House election with 32 people in the running for seven seats.
Concerns grow in Japan over possible Russian interference in Sunday’s election
A think tank researcher said anti-government propaganda by Russian bot accounts was what has made the small far-right party Sanseito so popular leading up to the Upper House election.
Japan's rice farmers are confounded by Shinjiro Koizumi’s policies
Kiyoshi Shibata stands in front of one of the rice paddies in Murayama, Yamagata Prefecture, where he produces the prefecture's signature rice brand Tsuyahime.
From stalking to death threats, female candidates still face harassment
Mayu Ushida, a former NHK newscaster running for election in the Tokyo electoral district on the Democratic Party for the People ticket, signs an autograph for a voter after a public rally at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Kawaii Lab redefines idol pop for the TikTok generation
Misa Kimura is the main producer for Kawaii Lab, a project by entertainment agency Asobisystem whose groups have found success by pairing a social media-first strategy with a fresh perspective on traditional idol-pop tropes.
Craig Mod's life in motion in a disappearing Japan
Mod's memoir “Things Become Other Things” chronicles his walking trips across the Kii Peninsula, surveying “a graceful end to a certain life cycle.”
With China and Trump, Japan defense report says world entering ‘new era of crisis’
A senior member of a Self-Defense Forces honor guard inspects a formation before the arrival of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for a visit to the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on June 30.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan
By Megha Wadhwa

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