February 4, 2013

Efforts made by a local co-op against Japan’s entry into the TPP free trade negotiations has spread into a cross-community coalition among consumers, farmers, doctors, and small-business owners in Yamagata Prefecture, claiming that trade liberalization will undermine the co-op ideal and the “local production for local consumption” goal.

“In the first place, the ideal of co-ops is to build up cooperative and communal activities to defend people’s health and lives,” said Hirobe Kimiko, vice representative of Coop Kyoritsusha.

She fears for food safety, saying, “I don’t want to see foreign foods lining supermarket shelves. I’m especially concerned about BSE in U.S. beef cattle. Free trade will destroy our longstanding campaign against food additives.”

Given that a communal movement is necessary to resist the TPP, 16 organizations at the prefectural level formed a liaison council last April. The participating groups include consumers’ co-operatives, an agricultural co-operative, a medical association, a federation of farmers’ movement, and a federation of traders and producers organization.

The liaison council last August sent its team to South Korea to determine the actual conditions of the KOR-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA), said to be a model for the TPP. The team met with members of co-ops and trade unions there.

The fact-finding team found:

- In three free economic zones in South Korea, for-profit entities entered into the medical field, imposing medical bills up to seven times higher than that designated by the public insurance system. Shareholders in such medical institutions can earn dividends from profits. The production of generic medicines became restricted because U.S. corporations accused South Korea of violating intellectual property rights, possibly causing the rise in drug prices.

- U.S. corporations threaten to sue the South Korean government for providing students with free school lunch meals using environmentally-friendly and locally-produced foodstuffs, claiming that it violates the agreement.

- About 30 other lawsuits are being considered by U.S. corporations.

- Only around 20 large-scale livestock farmers in South Korea are expected to survive even with domestic bailout measures.

“The South Korean people were telling us, ‘The KOR-US FTA is a model for the TPP. You’d better to block it in order to not follow in our footsteps’,” said Abe Susumu who took part in the visit to South Korea.

The team, after returning to Japan, has been sharing the information they got in South Korea with organizations in the liaison council. It printed 51,000 copies of a brochure illustrating the possible consequences of the TPP, warning that TPP participation will destroy Japanese rice production for the sake of the United States and some Japanese large corporations. The council uses the brochure for study meetings and anti-TPP street actions.

Many people are, however, unaware of the potential negative effects of the TPP or even believe that the TPP will bring about a boost to the economy.

A superintendent of schools in a municipality in the prefecture understood the TPP to be a treaty for everyone to get along well with each other. A co-op official then told this educational leader that the TPP agreement prioritizes itself over domestic laws and accordingly constitutes an unequal treaty taking away Japan’s sovereign rights.

Kudo Hiroshi, former board member of Coop Kyoritsusha, now serves as a lecturer at study meetings. He said, “For example, the TPP allows cheap foreign foods, meats, and rice to come to Japanese supermarkets, no matter if there are food crises in the world or if the safety of such foods is uncertain. In order to survive in price battles, employers will no longer use Japanese workers but foreigners as a cheap workforce under the TPP. Subsequently, wages of Japanese workers will decrease. Using such examples, people can get a sense of how their lives may adversely be affected.”

Hirobe Kimoko said, “The TPP will remove all regulations that may interfere with free trade, irrespective of adverse effects on people’s daily lives. It will also threaten the existence of health co-operatives and mutual aid co-operatives.”