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I will have more to say on this later, but I wanted to flag a potential major development out in the Asia-Pacific. On November 6, the Japanese government, in a document setting forth policy toward free trade agreements, formally agreed to explore consultations with the Trans-Pacific Partnership nations with the goal of joining the ongoing negotiations for a TPP free trade agreement at some point in the future. The document, which was agreed to by the cabinet over the past weekend, follows personal pledges by Prime Minister Kan to pursue this important advance in Japanese trade policy at a meeting of ASEAN heads of government last week. Kan directly linked a resolve to "open up the country" with the necessity to reform agricultural policy: "For Japan, resuscitation of Japanese agriculture and opening Japan further to the international community and to take advantage of the growth center of ASEAN and Asia, we need to find ways to make both work, and if we cannot do that then Japanese agriculture will not revive, and at worst we will be left behind in terms of trade liberalization." It is by no means clear that Kan can pull this off"”despite the cabinet document, he faces major opposition from his own cabinet members (Ag ministers certainly) and within his party. (Michael Auslin, what do you think?)
My real point for this brief note, however, is to urge the Obama administration to quickly applaud and support this move by Japan.
The issues transcend the details of a trade agreement. The TPP is a way station to an APEC-led Free Trade of the Asia Pacific Agreement somewhere off in the future"”and to the realization of a trans-Pacific Asian regionalism as opposed to an intra-Asian regional architecture that inevitably would be dominated by China. I clashed a bit with two very able U.S. and New Zealand trade negotiators several weeks ago at the Peterson Institute on just this larger question"”we have also begun to nitpick the Canadians over details of agricultural policy, trying to get substantial pre-commitments, before we will allow them to enter into the negotiations. Without involvement of diplomatic and security staff at the White House (and the State Department) there is danger that we will adopt such an approach with Japan. Both Japan and Canada are key democratic partners for the United States, and we should get them on board as soon as possible. I am not suggesting that we give away the store"”only that we keep the store open in the immediate future.
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