Japan's PM Takaichi wants to scrap food consumption tax for two years—but POS vendors say the register overhaul takes a year. Why does changing a number take so long? We compare Japan's tangled POS systems with the US, where a tax change takes an afternoon. The twist: America's speed is a side effect of its chaotic tax code.
Japan's government and three megabanks gained access to a frontier AI model for cyber defense, with the digital minister calling to expand it to critical infrastructure. Set against the new US executive order and the EU AI Act, here is how Tokyo's approach differs.
China overtook Japan in net external assets at the end of 2025, dropping it to third place — yet Japan's holdings hit a record high. Here is what the numbers really mean for the yen.
At the APEC trade ministers meeting in Suzhou, China, Japan's industry minister demanded that exporting countries rectify arbitrary rare earth curbs. A look at the slow squeeze on Japan, its roots in a Taiwan remark, and Tokyo's exit strategy.
PM Takaichi met BOJ Governor Ueda on May 22 and asked the central bank to carry out 'appropriate policy.' We explain Japan's central bank independence next to the US Fed and the ECB, and how a weak yen near 159 and the carry trade tie this to global markets.
OpenAI is moving to offer its newest cyber-focused AI model, GPT-5.5 Cyber, to the Japanese government and industry. Former NSA Director Paul Nakasone, now an OpenAI board member, flew to Tokyo to pitch critical-infrastructure cooperation. We unpack the contrast with Anthropic's tightly controlled Claude Mythos, the China-threat framing, and what it means that OpenAI wants Japan as its first international partner.
On May 19, Japan's ruling LDP unveiled a policy proposal calling for stablecoins and tokenized deposits to be treated as national financial infrastructure — and added to PM Takaichi's Big-Boned Policy in June. We compare Japan's approach with the Web3 hubs of Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE.
On May 16, 2026, BOJ Deputy Governor Ryozo Himino delivered a keynote on the 'singleness of money' at the Japan Society of Monetary Economics. Beyond the binary of US-style stablecoin policy and a digital euro, the BOJ is quietly exploring a third path built on tokenized deposits and tokenized central bank reserves on blockchain.
NEC has completed the East Micronesia Cable System (EMCS), a 2,250-kilometer optical submarine cable that gives three Pacific island nations their first-ever fiber connectivity. For Tarawa, Nauru, and Kosrae — roughly 100,000 people who had only known the 600-millisecond delay of satellite internet — the upgrade is transformative. The backstory is equally striking: in 2018, China's HMN Tech (formerly Huawei Marine) underbid NEC and Alcatel Submarine Networks by more than 20%. A 2020 US diplomatic warning to Micronesia, the World Bank's withdrawal, and a 2021 Japan-US-Australia rescue plan rewrote the project. Five years later, the cable is in the water.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira visited Japan on May 17–19 for the inaugural Japan-Brazil Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue. Here's what oil-dependent Tokyo wants from South America's resource giant amid the Hormuz crisis.
On May 18, 2026, the full content of Japan's LDP proposal for revising its three security documents was revealed. Early deployment of interceptor drones, sustained warfighting capability lasting 'at least a year,' early-warning drones over the Pacific, next-generation submarines with long-range missiles ― here's what Japan's future defense posture looks like, shaped by Ukraine war lessons and China deterrence.