I don't think that foreign power told them to focus on Hydrogen. Japan is still searching for an economic wunderwaffe. Like in the 90s when they tried to leapfrog the west on software by focusing their entire computer industry on Prolog.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm referring more to US forcing Japan to abandon export of chips to their biggest customer https://www.capitalbrief.com/newsletter/us-pushes-japan-netherlands-on-stricter-chip-controls-for-china-3f80bc97-3edc-4368-9482-6ea4b5cbc16a/preview/

[–] anachronist@midwest.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe I'm behind but I thought we were talking about electric cars...

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I mean it's all related in the end. If Japan bet wrong with hydrogen, then the obvious fix would be to partner up with Chinese companies like CATL for batteries.