Japan Press Weekly

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2011 February 2 - 8 TOP3 [ECONOMY]

Japan needs closer ties with East Asia, not with US and TPP editorial (excerpts)

Prime Minister Kan Naoto in a speech at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month said that Japan will reach a decision in regard to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact by June. The statement has been taken as his promise that Japan will endorse the TPP.

Part of stronger Japan-US alliance

The prime minister also placed emphasis on the important role of the Japan-U.S. alliance. The linkage he made between Japan joining the TPP and the Japan-U.S. alliance clearly reveals what the TPP is all about.

The TPP negotiations are promoted under U.S. leadership, and are totally different from Asian efforts to increase cooperation and regional integration. Some countries will not accept the free trade pact demanding a complete abolition of tariffs. Only four of the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have expressed their intention to join the TPP. Thus, the TPP has resulted in driving a wedge in ASEAN unity, and acting against establishing closer ties among East Asian countries.

Increased political and economic cooperation in East Asia, including Japan, has been much talked about for years, with the ASEAN as a center of cooperation because it is a peaceful regional community without any professed enemies. In the economic field, the Chiang Mai Initiative involving mutually accommodating foreign currencies at times of currency crises and establishing food reserves in anticipation of food shortages is endorsed by the ASEAN plus 3 (Japan, China, and South Korea).

This is why Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya of the Democratic Party of Japan government under PM Hatoyama Yukio had to exclude the United States from the government’s initial goal of the East Asian Community of ASEAN plus 6 (Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India).

However, the Kan government came up with the idea of Japan joining the TPP and the consequential economic integration with the United States, breaking off further talks of an East Asian community.

The DPJ government’s turnabout reflects the intention of the U.S. government. President Barack Obama, with his pledge to double U.S. exports, declared his intention to lead in the TPP negotiations by claiming that a regional agreement with high standards is a worthwhile goal of trade agreements in the 21st century.

The U.S. government has had a strong sense of crisis in regard to the possibility of the establishment of an East Asian community excluding the United States. For the U.S. economy, seriously damaged by the financial and economic crises, to recover, it is necessary to absorb the high growth of East Asia and promote a regional economic integration in harmony with U.S. interests.

The U.S. emphasis on the need for US military forces in Asia to be forward deployed and its insistence that Japan relocate the Futenma base for the US Marines within Okinawa are also directly related to economic concerns. The Kan government, deeply committed to the Japan-U.S alliance, wants to join the TPP as part of the process of strengthening this alliance.

Economic ties must be equal and reciprocal

The TPP places top priority on U.S. national interests. Any membership in the TPP requires approval of the U.S. Congress. For Japan, liberalization under the TPP will deal agriculture a deadly blow and will adversely affect every aspect of people’s livelihoods.

The path of regional integration for Japan to take is not to join the TPP that is tied to the Japan-U.S. alliance. The need is for Japan to establish its true independence and develop economic relations based on equality and reciprocity through cooperation with other countries in Asia.