Akio Tamura is a Japan researcher in Leiden Asia Centre. Prior to this position, he had worked in Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Japan as Political Affairs Policy Officer, where he researched about Japanese foreign polices, including economic security (2024-2026). He had also worked in a Japanese thinktank, Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) as research assistant (2022-2024), researching disarmament and economic security.
Akio is now engaging in a research project about bilateral cooperation in the semiconductor industry between Japan and the Netherlands. This research aims to argue how Japan balances deepening the cooperation and securing strategic autonomy, as it much relies on EUV lithography from ASML for manufacturing advanced chips.