The United States has directly asked the Japanese government for cooperation in stymieing China's efforts to develop high-end semiconductors, sources familiar with the matter said Saturday. The request, noting that the countries are allies sharing strategies against China, was made by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo during her phone conversation with Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura on Friday, according to the sources. The United States in October unveiled a sweeping set of export controls on certain high-end chips that could be used by Beijing to train artificial intelligence systems and power advanced applications in the military and surveillance fields. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.