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The Japanese government apparently tried to get Honda & Nissan to talk about a merger to pull Nissan out of the failing Renault-Nissan-Mitsubhi alliance.

Japanese government figures tried to bring Nissan Motor Co and Honda Motor Co to the table for merger talks this year, but the project fizzled out due to the companies' rejection of the idea, according to the Financial Times.
The suggestion was made to the major Japanese automakers at the end of last year, amid intensified global competition in the auto sector to shift toward self-driving electric vehicles, the international business paper said Sunday, citing three people familiar with the matter.
The idea of bringing together Nissan and Honda appears to have come from advisers to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as they were worried that the state of Nissan's alliance with Renault SA of France had soured badly since the 2018 arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn over financial misconduct, the newspaper reported.

Among Japan's eight big car brands, four of them -- Mazda Motor Corp, Subaru Corp, Suzuki Motor Corp, and Daihatsu Motor Co -- are tied by cross-shareholdings with Toyota Motor Corp, the country's leading automaker, leaving only Honda without a capital tie-up.

Is the Japanese government trying to save the weaker companies? Seems like the companies in the land of the rising sun are forced to combine forces while going electric. Example: Toyota is sharing technology and cars with Suzuki, Mazda, Daihatsu, and Subaru.

Source #1

Source #2