Chinese regulator approves ANA takeover of Nippon Cargo
BEIJING (Reuters) -- China's market regulator said on Tuesday it has approved ANA Holdings' acquisition of Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA) with conditions, including a set of binding commitments to preserve fair competition in the China-Japan air cargo market.
The Chinese regulator's approval has cleared the way for ANA, Japan's largest airline, to buy NCA to bolster international cargo operations, after multiple delays.
In a statement, the State Administration for Market Regulation said ANA, NCA and their merged entity must continue to honor existing agreements for cargo ground handling at the Tokyo area's Narita Airport and the Osaka area's Kansai Airport.
The decision was made to ensure the smooth operation of bilateral trade and safeguard the stability of regional industrial and supply chains, the regulator said.
With the green light from the Chinese authority, ANA is set to acquire NCA from current parent Nippon Yusen, Japan's largest shipping line, on Aug. 1, it said.
ANA announced the plan to acquire NCA in 2023 but has postponed the execution eight times, most recently June 25, citing delays in regulatory processes.
Japan Fair Trade Commission, the country's market watchdog, had approved the takeover plan in January.
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Taiwan just tightened its grip on a key chokepoint in the global chip war, aligning its export controls more closely with U.S. restrictions on China. On June 10, the International Trade Administration under Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) amended its Strategic High-Tech Commodities (SHTC) export control scheme, specifically adding several Chinese companies to the entity list, a roster of firms subject to government licensing requirements for exports. Taiwanese firms, such as TSMC, must now secure government licenses before exporting products or components to these listed companies, directly or through third parties. Among the 601 newly listed entities from countries including Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Myanmar, and China, two stand out: Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), both Chinese high-tech giants already under the spotlight of U.S. export controls amid escalating China-U.S. rivalry over global AI leadership. MOEA described this change as 'routine,' citing 'national security and weapons proliferation concerns,' and urged firms to tighten their due diligence. However, behind this diplomatic note lies a deeper shift: Taiwan's export control regime is becoming more closely aligned with U.S. policy, recalibrating its role in an emerging U.S.-anchored system of networked chokepoint statecraft. From Peripheral Compliance to Strategic Legal Alignment? At a glance, Taiwan's update does not radically expand what firms like TSMC have been required to do under U.S. export restrictions. Since 2018, the United States – citing national security threats – has pursued aggressive measures to constrain China's access to cutting-edge technologies. With bipartisan support, these measures have expanded across three administrations. Huawei was added to the U.S. Commerce Department's entity list in 2019, and SMIC followed in 2020, effectively blocking them from obtaining critical U.S. technologies. 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In practice, enforcement gaps have persisted, driven partly by the lack of coordination between the U.S. and other chokepoint economies amid supply chain complexity, insufficient law enforcement and compliance, shifting technologies, and competing interests even within the network of 'like-minded countries.' In late 2024, after TechInsights reported that chips ordered by a Chinese firm, Sophgo, seemed to have ended up inside Huawei's Ascend 910B AI processor, TSMC alerted the U.S. authorities and suspended further shipments to Sophgo. In January 2025, the U.S. Commerce Department called the incident a 'huge concern,' adding Sophgo and the affiliates to the entity list. The episode, while still under investigation, exposed the limits of extraterritorial enforcement. Despite TSMC's well-resourced compliance and commitments, its chips may still – via complex intermediary networks – reach end users in China. Such challenges would likely worsen following President Donald Trump's cuts to BIS funding earlier this year. This case underscores an enduring problem: unilateral U.S. export control – however sweeping it may be – faces inherent enforcement challenges across sprawling global supply chains. If a firm as sophisticated as TSMC cannot prevent such diversions, the compliance challenge would be even greater for smaller Taiwanese companies – and likely, for tech firms in other countries with fewer due diligence capabilities. Indeed, a myriad of gray zone actors – including shell companies and intermediaries – continue to exploit the limits of the U.S. extraterritorial reach. Recent headlines surrounding the rise of China's DeepSeek only reinforce this broader concern. The company's release of its disruptive R1 model not only triggered a market shock and investor scrutiny, but also official investigations into whether it trained the system with restricted Nvidia GPUs – potentially smuggled through third countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and the UAE. This is precisely why 'orchestrating' the enforcement efforts of the chokepoint economies – such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands – is critical for Washington, notwithstanding the resurgence of nationalism, industrial policy, and the erosion of the post-war liberal, rule-based order. In this light, Taiwan's June 10 update is no mere technical fine-tuning – it marks a shift in both regulatory burden-sharing and further security alignment. The MOEA did not mention the U.S. at all. Instead, it framed the update as a routine, 'U.N.- and friendly ally-aligned adjustment,' authorized under Article 13 of the Foreign Trade Act and based on international sanctions lists, nominally aimed at curbing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. However, the move is more significant in context. By adding Huawei and SMIC to the entity list, the Taiwan government appears to signal a stronger commitment to align its export control regime with U.S.-led efforts to contain China's access to critical technologies. June 10 Rules: Regulatory Uncertainty, Technical Constraints, and Geopolitical Stakes The timing of Taiwan's decision to ratchet up its export controls coincides with renewed U.S. pressure. Trump has announced 'reciprocal tariffs' on countries running goods trade deficits with the United States, which triggered a series of bilateral negotiations on tariffs, market access, and other trade barriers. While the tariffs are suspended at the moment, the 90-day pause expires in a matter of days. At the same time, Taiwan also seeks to shoulder part of the enforcement burden – particularly as TSMC faces potential penalties of $1 billion or more under U.S. export controls. Yet, this shift could expose Taiwan to new challenges. First, Taiwan's export control regime generally operates on a 'product-based' plus 'end-user' list basis, both traditionally far narrower in scope than U.S. controls. Under Taiwan's system, if an export is not listed on the controlled product list or the entity list, no license is required. Even if an item is not covered under the product lists, however, exporters need to obtain prior approval if it is destined for companies or individuals on the entity list, or if the ultimate users are on the entity list. Past practices did not raise regulatory complications because of the narrow scope and relatively straightforward nature of the entity list. Today, with Huawei and SMIC added to the entity list, this legal threshold changes dramatically. Without further clarification on law enforcement and technologically-informed exercise of administrative discretion, virtually any transaction with these firms – whether involving advanced chips, or items not covered by the U.S. restrictions (printed circuit boards, special chemicals, sensor parts, high-resolution optical lenses, or everyday items like USB drives) – may now trigger an export license requirement. In other words, products that were previously exempt from licensing requirements must now undergo formal review – not due to their intrinsic classification under the controlled items list but solely based on their end-use or end-user profile. The compliance burden on Taiwanese firms will expand considerably, posing difficult questions for both government and industry. How can this broad legal mandate be effectively enforced in daily practice across thousands of active firms? How should the Taiwanese government and affected firms navigate the troubled landscape of geopolitics and national and economic security? How can they work together to address the potential challenges of administrative discretion, technical expertise, regulatory frictions, ad-hoc exemptions, SME assistance, and enforcement uncertainty? How could the SHTC list be better aligned with the National Core Key Technology list to ensure more consistent regulation? For Taiwan's semiconductor industry, the June 10 update adds new layers of complexity to this balancing act – and could further entrench market bifurcation. Many Taiwanese firms, such as TSMC, now adopt a 'China for China' strategy – localizing supply chains and operations to ringfence Chinese business from broader geopolitical risks. U.S. companies like Nvidia, take similar steps, developing China-specific products to maintain market access under existing export controls. Yet this approach risks deepening the long-term decoupling of global tech ecosystems. These issues add another layer of complexity by blurring the boundaries between the public and private sectors in regulatory decision-making and accountability. Previously, when TSMC operated primarily under the extraterritoriality of U.S. rules (while Taiwan's regulations were less stringent), compliance failures were treated mainly as commercial or legal issues – a matter between a Taiwan-based multinational enterprise and the U.S. regulators. Now, the June 10 update and likely subsequent revisions to further orchestrate Taiwan's legal regime with U.S. export control regulations may alter the stakes and dynamics, particularly because the Taiwanese government is now more formally involved in the China-U.S. tech rivalry. Should any advanced chips continue to reach Huawei, SMIC, or other restricted entities, it would no longer be considered a simple compliance failure. 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As the export control regime expands, TSMC overseas fabs may pose new regulatory complications in terms of rules (mis)alignment and law enforcement asymmetry in the long run. Without deeper and ex ante cooperation on IP protection, talent development, upstream innovation – and the associated subsidy frameworks – mere reliance on ex post legal enforcement through U.S. extraterritorial measures is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term. Building a truly resilient semiconductor ecosystem in the United States will take more than orchestrated export controls – it will require a broader alignment of strategy on these intangible fronts and institutional collaboration with chokepoint economies. Taiwan is, however, only one piece of a larger puzzle. Other chokepoint economies that control various key nodes of the global semiconductor supply chain, including Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands, remain equally indispensable to U.S. high-tech strategy. A sectoral deal that brings together like-minded economies to coordinate inbound and outbound investment screening, export controls rulemaking and enforcement, information-sharing, and strategic alignment, and, most critically, a pragmatic (networked) framework or forum for such orchestrated collaboration among chokepoint economies may form the backbone of a more sustainable and secure techno-industrial alliance. The authors would like to thank Hui-Heng Hong, Helen Hai-Ning Huang, Inu Manak, and June Park for their comments on an earlier draft of this op-ed. Any remaining errors are our own.
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ANA Holdings originally announced the plan to buy Nippon Cargo Airlines in 2023 but postponed the deal eight times, citing regulatory delays. (Photo by Makoto Okada) BEIJING (Reuters) -- China's market regulator said on Tuesday it has approved ANA Holdings' acquisition of Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA) with conditions, including a set of binding commitments to preserve fair competition in the China-Japan air cargo market. The Chinese regulator's approval has cleared the way for ANA, Japan's largest airline, to buy NCA to bolster international cargo operations, after multiple delays. In a statement, the State Administration for Market Regulation said ANA, NCA and their merged entity must continue to honor existing agreements for cargo ground handling at the Tokyo area's Narita Airport and the Osaka area's Kansai Airport. The decision was made to ensure the smooth operation of bilateral trade and safeguard the stability of regional industrial and supply chains, the regulator said. With the green light from the Chinese authority, ANA is set to acquire NCA from current parent Nippon Yusen, Japan's largest shipping line, on Aug. 1, it said. ANA announced the plan to acquire NCA in 2023 but has postponed the execution eight times, most recently June 25, citing delays in regulatory processes. Japan Fair Trade Commission, the country's market watchdog, had approved the takeover plan in January.
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