From Technological “Catch-up” to “Leap-frog”: Computers, Semiconductors, and Telecommunications

Abstract

The Spring 1989 conflict over the FSX fighter jet revealed many of the strategies, successes, and limitations of Japan’s high-technology policies. Tokyo has targeted aerospace for development since the 1960s, and a key policy has been to get Washington to agree to license production of its most advanced military aircraft in Japan. By 1983, this policy had been so successful in advancing Japan’s aerospace technology that Tokyo felt confident enough to announce it would independently develop a new state-of-the-art fighter jet scheduled for deployment in the 1990s. The FSX project would pull together a diverse range of technologies and firms into the production of a single weapon, and represent a major advance for Japan’s aerospace industry.