Japan torn over US-led free-trade pact
By Daniel Leussink
TOKYO - At first glance, Yoshio Hachiro and Masahiko Yamada look like they have
been cut from the same piece of wood. Both men worked in agriculture for
decades before turning to politics.
Sixty-three-year-old Hachiro was a general manager of a rural farming
cooperative in Hokkaido, Japan's most northern prefecture. He promoted Imakane
Danshaku, locally grown potatoes considered such a delicacy that they are sold
individually wrapped in Tokyo's ritzy and posh department stores.
Yamada, 69, is a farmer, a lawyer as well as a veteran member of the Lower
House of parliament and a native from an island 100 kilometers west of the
southern prefecture Nagasaki. He is the author of several books on the
perceived threat to agriculture in
Japan, including Japan will be crushed by imported food and Japan to be
smashed by China on food. He also published a novel on food security
called The Japan-US food war. [1]
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has announced his nation entered into
preliminary talks to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a regional
economic pact under negotiation by nine nations across the Asia-Pacific, on the
sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii earlier
this month.
But Japan's involvement in the TPP has stirred a lot of debate in Japan. It is
the only case of a regional economic pact that is moving forward. Yomiuri
Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper that has the highest circulation in the
world, has published six editorials in favor of Japan's participation in TPP
this month.
Noda's decision also pitched the farming barons Hachiro and Yamada fiercely
against one another. Hachiro is strongly in favor of joining the TPP, while
Yamada opposes starting the negotiation process, wanting to postpone it to a
later date.
"Japan is committed to becoming a trading and investment nation and as a result
this is a very important step for us," said Hachiro shortly after Noda
announced Japan's intention to enter into preliminary talks with TPP member
nations to join the pact.
"Japan must have a very high level system in place in this area to achieve very
high standards for trade and investment. Thus, our government must take a
leadership role."
"Prime Minister Noda was trying to say that the fundamental intent of the
Japanese government is to begin entering the TPP negotiations as quickly as
possible because Japan wants to take an active role to create the rules that
are going to be decided in the agreement," he said. "That is the most important
meaning behind his words."
Hachiro is the head of a project team on TPP within the ruling Democratic Party
of Japan (DPJ). His team has held more than 25 meeting for over 50 discussion
hours since it was established on October 4, he told reporters at the Foreign
Correspondents' Club of Japan. Within the DPJ, deliberations to start talks to
enter the TPP negotiation process begun in November last year.
"I believe that although there are many similar project teams in Japan, this
was very unusual in that it had very intense discussions," said Hachiro, who
was forced to resign in September as trade minister over a gaffe he made
hurting the feelings of evacuees from the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant.
"Many voices were raised that it was too early for Japan to announce its entry
into the TPP process. We included a recommendation in our proposal that the
government should take all these concerns into consideration and reach their
decision in a very cautious and very careful manner."
Over 500 politicians, both members of the Lower and Upper House, made comments
on the TPP during the project meetings, reflecting a cacophony of opinions
within the ruling party on Japan's entry into negotiations for joining the
economic pact. The final report of the project team refrained to give Noda a
direct recommendation whether or not Japan should enter into negotiations,
which is a cabinet decision.
Meanwhile, former agricultural minister Yamada organized a group of more than
220 lawmakers from the ruling party, coalition partners and independents, who
were against entering the negotiation process, in a bid to raise the voices of
those who oppose the pact.
"The TPP has the potential to change the shape of our nation. It has the
possibility to change our daily lives," said Yamada. "As a result, voices of
opposition are raised not only from the agricultural sector but from other
sectors as well. Many of the lawmakers in our group represent other sectors
besides agriculture."
The trade agreement "could ruin the country's medical system," Ryotaro Tanose,
a top official for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, said during a
November 13 debate on NHK, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Yamada's group asked for more time to study the benefits of TPP before entering
into talks to join the negotiation process. "We are not so much against TPP,
because there is no TPP contract and there are no TPP rules in place yet. But
our group says that this needs further study," said Yamada.
He emphasized that his group was in favor of strong relations with the United
States and other TPP member nations and in favor of free trade.
But he also warned that Japan may lose its rights to set tariffs independently
from other nations if it joined the TPP. He compared the TPP to the Kansei
Reforms of the 19th century, after which Japan did not retrieve its rights to
set its own tariffs until after the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905.
"There is a possibility that Japan could lose its right to set its own
tariffs," he said. "We believe that the right to set a country's tariffs is a
right inherent in every sovereign nation state."
The TPP agreement goes beyond many other more low-key free-trade agreements in
that it does more than regulating tariffs. It aims to create a high-quality
agreement that will regulate goods, services, investment, capital and labor in
21 different areas including agriculture, healthcare and insurance.
At a recent forum on Japan's earthquake revitalization that brought together
policymakers, businessmen, academics and former politicians and trade
negotiators from across the Asia-Pacific region in a variety of panel
discussions, critics pointed out that the government had not done enough to
pinpoint the benefits for joining TPP.
The government "has not done a great job of explaining the benefits, and the
debate has become emotionally charged," said Yoko Ishikura, a professor
specialized in business strategy and competitiveness at Keio University. "We
need to ask: 'What if Japan doesn't join? That could be a bigger risk," she
said.
Note
1. The titles of Yamada's books are provisional translations from the original
Japanese.
Daniel Leussink is a Dutch journalist in Tokyo.
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