Japan had long maintained deep economic ties with both China and the United States. Recent trade tensions may challenge that approach.

Japan intends to push back against any US effort to bring it into an economic bloc aligned against China because of the importance of Tokyo’s trade ties with Beijing, according to current and former Japanese government officials.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is generating enormous preorder interest in Japan, where the initial batch has sold out.

Nintendo said on Wednesday it has received 2.2 million applications in the lottery for its Switch 2 gaming device in Japan but cannot fulfil all the demand. There were far more applications on the My Nintendo Store than expected and the amount that can be delivered on June 5 has been greatly exceeded,