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Comment by FreedomToCreate | Hacker News Reader

Well I'm somewhat surprised the Japanese government didn't step up...or in fact any Japanese company. Sharp may be losing money but there display tech is a head of the game, and you know, Japanese nationalism.

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I think it would have been different if a Chinese or Korean company wanted to buy Sharp. Japan and Taiwan have a cordial relationship AFAIK.

LCD know-how is good no doubt, but there are good reason why from the domestic side nobody wanted to step in. Honhai is obviously looking to diversify, but how they will make it work ... Well, time will tell. Let's not forget there are many strong players in CE.

The government kind of stepped up: the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan [0], a fund backed by the government, offered ¥300B cash and a ¥200B credit line [1]. Not as much as Foxconn was offering, so I guess that's why they didn't take it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INCJ [1] http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Deals/Sharp-accepts-Hon-Hai-...

Well Taiwan is special case due to Chiang Kai-shek. The relationships between him, japanese and the civil war in china are very interesting.

Japan and Taiwan are on friendly terms, more so than Taiwan and mainland China.

Japan colonised Taiwan and is considered to have modernised the island. The Japanese period is generally considered to have been better than what came afterwards (Chiang Kai-shek's KMT fleeing the mainland and Mao's thugs). The KMT is considered better than Mao's communist party.

Summary: Japan > KMT > Mao

The Japanese government was bidding, but only offered half as much.

It's not the first time. Nissan.

Also, isn't Sony using their displays in all of their TVs?

No, Sony buys panels from a variety of vendors.

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