ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an account of Japanese policies towards transnational and of the evolution of these policies since the Second World War. Building on this, we then discuss the characteristics of the policies. Policy has evolved considerably over the last thirty years, with Japan responsive to international pressures to open up to investment flows, but at the same time aware of the potential problems involved (and more explicitly so than in other countries which have taken the transnational issue seriously, such as France). This has contributed to the policy evolution having been controlled. The process has been one of ‘liberalisation’, but with Japanese objectives at the forefront.
