Japan Press Weekly

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2016 September 14 - 20 [POLITICS]

Abe Cabinet ministers break election promises to oppose TPP

The Abe Cabinet seeks to obtain parliamentary approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact in the coming extraordinary Diet session that is to be convened next week. However, a majority of the Abe Cabinet ministers were at one time opposed to the TPP, Akahata reported on September 18.

During the campaign for the December 2012 election in which Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party was returned to power, eleven of 20 ministers in the current Abe Cabinet pledged to oppose the TPP. The 11 ministers’ breach of their campaign promises clearly shows that the Abe Cabinet and the ruling coalition do not hesitate to go back on their promises.

For example, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Aso Taro, Welfare Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa, and Education Minister Matsuno Hirokazu in their election pamphlets stated that they are opposed to “the elimination of tariffs without any sanctuaries” under the TPP framework. Minister in charge of Economic Revitalization Ishihara Nobuteru and Transport Minister Ishii Keiichi said that they were against the TPP in response to a questionnaire by the Mainichi Shimbun.

Defense Minister Inada Tomomi in a Sankei Shimbun column dated November 7, 2011 argued that the terminal stop of the “TPP” bus is a graveyard of Japanese culture. In addition, in the January 2012 issue of the rightist magazine “Will” she wrote that she cannot understand why conservatives do not raise their voices in protest against the free trade pact.

The Abe government in February signed the TPP agreement. In the Diet deliberation before the signing, the Abe Cabinet refused to provide detailed information to the Diet members by such means as blacking out lines of disclosed documents. This aroused public criticism. The opposition parties condemned the TPP treaty for going against a Diet resolution which stipulates that Japan’s five key agricultural products should be excluded from the tariff elimination scheme. Thus, there remain a lot of issues that need to be discussed.

All ministers of the Abe Cabinet should squarely face the criticism by the opposition parties and anxieties of the general public. In addition, they should fulfill their responsibility of explaining why they changed their positions and decided to support the TPP.

Past related articles:
> Japan should not rush for TPP ratification [September 3, 2016]
> Gov’t completely blacks out content of TPP documents [April 8, 2016]