Japan’s Intellectual-Property Protection Is Full of Loopholes — The “Thousand Talents Plan” and Technology Theft

2020-12-31
The following is an excerpt from the prologue of the book described below.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world.
The “Thousand Talents Plan” Technology-Theft Program
COCOM was a system of controls that prohibited the export of military technology to the Soviet Union during the Cold War between East and West, and it did not simply disappear with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Strictly speaking, CHINCOM—the China Committee, established in 1952 to control exports to China—also existed, but it had become meaningless in practice.
Under ECRA, which was revived as a “second COCOM,” China became the principal enemy.
Japanese companies remained complacent and took no countermeasures.
Approximately eight hundred Japanese companies do business with blacklisted Chinese companies.
Sooner or later, an incident resembling a “second Toshiba–COCOM affair” will occur.
The Trump administration’s stated intention was to protect intellectual property, eliminate industrial spies, and frustrate China’s “Thousand Talents Plan,” which recruited outstanding individuals, principally people of Chinese origin, from Silicon Valley and Harvard University.
The greatest motivation behind ECRA was the anxiety and impatience created by the reality that the United States was falling behind China in the development of 5G—the fifth-generation mobile communications system—and AI—artificial intelligence—which would become the core technologies of the next high-tech era.
If 5G communications networks were established under Chinese leadership, the United States could lose its technological hegemony.
Alarmed by China’s lead in 5G development, the United States announced the development of the next generation beyond it, 6G, and excluded Huawei from the international standardization conference.
At the same time, it strengthened covert investigations and began full-scale operations to prevent Chinese spies from stealing advanced technology.
A symbolic incident involving the “Thousand Talents Plan” occurred on December 1, 2018, when the United States had Canadian authorities detain Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on the grounds that she had been “involved in illegal exports to Iran.”
On January 28, 2020, authorities arrested and indicted Harvard University professor Charles Lieber for traitorous conduct as an agent of China.
Professor Lieber had entered into a secret agreement with Wuhan University of Technology in China and received a separate monthly allowance of fifty thousand dollars.
He was deeply involved in China’s “Thousand Talents Plan.”
Professor Zhang Shoucheng of Stanford University, who had been under covert investigation, died in a mysterious “suicide” in San Francisco on the day of the Huawei CEO’s arrest.
These two incidents revealed the full picture of China’s “Thousand Talents Plan.”
The “Thousand Talents Plan” recruits overseas personnel with specialized knowledge so that they can be used in Chinese research projects.
Officials from the FBI and other American organizations described it as a “technology-theft program” and continued their covert investigations.
The targets of the “Thousand Talents Plan” include researchers at overseas companies and universities, research personnel, and executives responsible for patents, and there are separate programs for Chinese and foreign participants.
Universities, research institutes, laboratories, and other organizations conducting joint research and development projects with the United States National Institutes of Health are located in fifty-nine American cities and receive a combined R&D budget of 164 million dollars.
It was discovered that 399 researchers were involved in vaccine development and other work, and that authorities were investigating 133 of them (Asia Times, June 20, 2020).
Some have expressed regret, saying, “Conducting joint research with China was itself a mistake,” but in reality, many laboratory personnel are cooperating with China without being aware of what they are doing.
Rather than the “organ harvesting” at which the Chinese government excels, is this not “brain harvesting”?
Japan’s Intellectual-Property Protection Is Full of Loopholes
Japan is the country with the most serious problem.
Unlike the United States and European countries, Japan has no anti-espionage law.
＊Several years ago, when an attempt was made to enact legislation resembling such a law but which could hardly be called an anti-espionage law, it was left-wing figures associated with the Asahi Shimbun and others who cried out against its enactment.
The fact that Sin Sugok was one of the leading opponents, and that she went into exile in Germany at the same time the law was enacted, was tantamount to proving by her own actions that she had in fact been a spy for the Korean Peninsula.
Her name has also appeared in connection with the recent installation of a comfort-woman statue in Berlin’s Mitte district.
The Asahi Shimbun and others gave such a person prominent treatment, while Shūkan Kinyōbi, whose president was Takashi Uemura, made her an executive.
In the United States, all of them would probably have been prosecuted.
In China, which they love so much, their conduct would merit the death penalty.＊
Japan’s condition of unrestricted information leakage is therefore even more serious than that of the United States.
Accurately reading developments in the United States, members of the Liberal Democratic Party began discussing the “secrecy provision” missing from Japan’s patent system.
On July 28, 2020, the Liberal Democratic Party’s Parliamentary League for Rule-Making Strategy, chaired by Akira Amari, began considering whether Japan could regulate TikTok, the Chinese-made short-video posting application.
Following India, the United States also banned it because of the risk that personal information might be leaked to China.
There is also the problem of Japan’s patent system.
In Japan, the complete contents of a patent application are disclosed through the Patent Gazette eighteen months after the application is submitted.
Because the Patent Gazette is a public document, translating it into Chinese on the same day is not illegal.
Under American patent law, military technologies belonging to the highest level of secrecy can be designated as “secret patents.”
They are commonly known as “submarine patents.”
An LDP committee also began discussing a patent-secrecy system.
It was already more than thirty-five years ago that the author wrote The Japan–U.S. Advanced Patent War, published by Diamond, Inc.
I recall that when part of the manuscript was published in the magazine Jiyū, it was immediately translated into English, and a technical officer from the United States Embassy requested a meeting while carrying a copy of the translation.
Japanese civilian technologies have broad applications.
For example, autofocus technology from Nikon and other companies, together with CD-reading technology, became the eyes of cruise missiles; Sony’s video-camera technology became a guidance system for precision-guided bombs; and coatings developed by TDK, a manufacturer of magnetic tape for recorders, were adapted for use in stealth fighters.
The author therefore argued that a secrecy provision should be added to the patent system, as it had been before the war.
Patent department heads from Ricoh, Mitsubishi Electric, Sanyo Electric, and other companies willingly agreed to be interviewed, and immediately after the book’s publication, the author received requests to give lectures from organizations including Toyota’s patent headquarters.
At Japan–United States defense symposiums, the author also served several times as a panelist and called for the restoration of the patent system’s secrecy provision.
Thirty-five years have passed since then, but nothing has changed.
Patent publication gazettes remain unchanged and continue to disclose information without restriction.
During that time, the United States sanctioned Toshiba for violating COCOM by supplying the Soviet Union, as it then existed, with technology for silencing propeller noise.
The United States provided next-generation semiconductor technology to South Korea over Japan’s head.
Japan’s semiconductor industry clearly fell behind.
Only a few companies, including Renesas Electronics, remained, while the factories using the latest technology shifted to Taiwan and South Korea through TSMC and Samsung.
Until now, America’s Intel has led the field in advanced semiconductors capable of military use.
Intel constructed its principal plant in Israel, while TSMC stated that it would build a new plant in Arizona at the strong request of the Trump administration.
The effort to regain ground in semiconductors is now moving into full operation.
Why was Japan left behind?
In addition to the weakness of its counterintelligence system, does Japan not also suffer from defects in its patent system?
To be continued.