Japan Inc. caught in dilemma in US decoupling campaign

Experts say there is a wide gap between government and business

Japanese companies, including members of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), are struggling to work out how to deal with the U.S. and China amid the intensifying friction between the world's two biggest economies.

HISAO KODACHI, Nikkei staff writer

October 10, 2020 13:15 JST

TOKYO -- Japanese companies are increasingly mired in a widening economic division between the U.S. and China, driven by Washington's accelerating moves to shut out Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies from the U.S. and other markets.

"We will be troubled if we are urged to choose between the U.S. and China," Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi of the Japan Business Federation, the voice of big Japanese companies better known as Keidanren, said during an online press conference on Monday.