Business Leads at Historic U.S.-Japan Cyber Dialogue

In mid-June, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce led a delegation of senior U.S. business leaders in a series of discussions with the U.S. and Japanese governments, as well as the Japanese private sector, at the 10^th U.S.-Japan Cyber Dialogue in Tokyo, Japan. This marked the first time in the Dialogue’s ten-year history that industry has assumed a seat at the table.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Cyberspace Security Liesyl Franz from the U.S. Department of State led the U.S. government delegation, while Deputy Assistant Minister for Cyber Security and Information Technology Management Ambassador Yukio Saita of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs led for the Government of Japan.

What happened: U.S. industry demonstrated its commitment to increased cybersecurity collaboration with the Government of Japan and the Japanese private sector by showing up en masse. More than 40 U.S. private-sector representatives from 24 companies attended the event. 

Jordan Heiber, Vice President for International Digital Economy Policy at the U.S. Chamber, led the U.S. industry delegation with support from the U.S.-Japan Business Council, while Akihiro Wada, Chairman of the Working Group on Cyber-Security Enhancement at Keidanren, led the Japanese industry group.

Why it matters: Japan recently passed the Active Cyber Defence (ACD) Act, which grants the government the needed authority to establish the offices and capabilities necessary to ramp up its defensive cyber capabilities. However, the ACD alone cannot address critical ongoing challenges, such as Japan’s lack of trained cyber professionals and relatively low rates of adoption for secure digital services like cloud storage.

Deeper U.S.-Japan technology collaboration, buttressed by enhanced public-private cooperation, is essential to successfully implementing the law and improving Japan's cyber posture and incident response.

The Dialogue gave the U.S. private sector the opportunity to share case studies, best practices, and recommendations directly with representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. Department of State, the Japanese National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Ministry of Internal Communications, and leading Japanese private sector firms.

U.S. firms advanced three major messages at the Dialogue:

1. The public sector should promote increased cybersecurity through a carefully tuned mix of regulation and best practices . Many organizations do not perceive the need for a strong cybersecurity posture until they suffer a serious attack. U.S. industry advocated for the public sector to utilize a mix of targeted regulation and industry-led best practices to defend against evolving threats that target legacy systems, outdated software, and vulnerabilities created by burdensome localization requirements.  
2. Governments should be transparent and proactive in sharing incident information with the private sector, going beyond existing post-mortem reports. This enables cybersecurity professionals to identify vulnerabilities and work to address gaps before an attack occurs. These data can also be used to improve AI models for threat detection and prevention.
3. The U.S. and Japan can support cybersecurity in third countries, including through official development assistance (ODA) packages. Many governments rely solely on open-source code to build their cybersecurity posture, leaving them vulnerable to attack vectors that cybercriminals can—and do—exploit to steal intelligence, intellectual property, operational data for critical infrastructure, and other protected information. ODA plays a key role in enabling digital adoption and improving the quality and safety of digital infrastructure in developing countries.

What’s next: U.S. firms are standing ready to partner with Japanese colleagues across the public and private sectors to further bolster Japan’s cyber posture. The Chamber will continue to press the Government of Japan to adopt standards and regulations making government and corporate information systems easier to use, and more affordable, accessible, and secure.

About the author

Kelly Primrose

Kelly Primrose is Senior Manager for the U.S.-Japan Business Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.