A former top U.S. national security official has voiced concern over the Japanese government's plan to require major app store operators such as Apple Inc. and Google LLC to allow users to download apps outside of their selling platforms.
"There's no question that the Chinese Communist Party is going to take advantage" of any new law permitting apps from unvetted third-party sources, said Robert O'Brien, who was national security adviser from September 2019 to January 2021 for then-President Donald Trump, in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
While recognizing the need to encourage fair industry competition, O'Brien called on Japanese authorities to put such legislation on hold as he believes the risks for privacy and national security would be unacceptable.
He warned that "even a partially open door still provides an opening that the CCP and other bad actors can exploit."
The Japanese plan, announced in June, would enable users to download apps from a wider range of software developers, with the government stating that only products deemed safe would be allowed on the market.
But apart from objections to the envisaged law by Apple and Google, which dominate the world's operating systems market, concerns over how to practically ensure the privacy and security of users also persist among a number of people associated with the industry.
Because of the duopoly situation, app developers now have few options but to follow the rules enforced by the IT giants, while the fees they pay to the store operators remain high. The Japanese plan also aims to change this situation.
But O'Brien, who now leads a consulting firm, underscored that "we don't need to rush after the Europeans" on antitrust-related issues.
The former White House official said Japan, which he sees as the most important security ally of the United States amid the rise of China, needs to focus more on protection from potential national security threats.
He added that if Japan were to become vulnerable to China's intelligence work, it would be a serious threat to U.S. national security.
Given that China introduced a law in 2017 that obligates private companies to cooperate with its intelligence officials, O'Brien said there is a strong possibility that all sorts of information would be taken from smartphones and other devices used not only within the country but also abroad.
"The Chinese are now not just doing this for their own people," said O'Brien, who co-founded American Global Strategies LLC in 2021, pointing out that China is accumulating private information from people in many countries, including Japan and the United States, as well as Taiwan.
Speaking online on Wednesday, he said China "in just a couple of years, wants to be the world leader to dominate everything from robotics to artificial intelligence to quantum computing. They want to have the high ground for the future."
"America and Japan have to be side by side in protecting liberty and democracy in the (Indo-Pacific) region," he said.
