Revitalizing Japan’s politics and economy the key to Japanese foreign policy and regional stability

Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, JCIE

Looking at East Asia through Japan’s eyes, there are a number of challenges that, if not managed carefully, risk spoiling the future stability and prosperity of Japan and the entire region.

Four challenges in particular stand out: the North Korean nuclear threat; Japan–China tensions surrounding the Senkaku Islands; Japan–South Korea relations, which further deteriorated after former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to Takeshima; and the need to reinvigorate Japan’s politics and economy. Read more…

Mexican tomatoes and the US TPP negotiations

APTOPIX Chilly Florida

Author: Claude Barfield, AEI

In the United States it’s hard to find high-quality winter tomatoes from Mexico or textiles and apparel from poor countries in Asia, Africa and South America.

Those markets have been largely closed off to the United States, in an example of the government’s refusal to abandon old-fashioned 20th-century protectionism in agriculture and manufacturing. Read more…

Will the TPP facilitate or disrupt supply chains?

Chief negotiators from nine countries taking part in Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks in Melbourne, Australia talk at a joint press conference on 9 March 2012. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International, Washington

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, like the Doha Round, appears always to be concluded next year.

An end-2012 deadline to ‘finish a legal text’ that was laid out at the 2011 Honolulu APEC Summit passed without incident or accomplishment. Read more…

‘Third force’ parties crowd Japan’s political scene

Tomorrow Party of Japan leader, Yukiko Kada, chats with a young mother holding her baby at Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan on 4 December  2012.  Japan's election campaign kicked off with party leaders in Fukushima, setting the tone for a poll set to be dominated by the economy and nuclear power after last year's atomic disaster. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Purnendra Jain, University of Adelaide and GRIPS Tokyo

Japan’s lower house election is scheduled for 16 December.

When Prime Minister Noda unexpectedly announced a snap election several weeks ago, it seemed the main contest would be between the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which ruled Japan almost continuously after its formation in 1955. Read more…

Will RCEP compete with the TPP?

World leaders at the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Tuesday, 20 November 2012, where the RCEP was launched. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Beginda Pakpahan, UI

Competition appears likely to emerge between ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an agreement to launch negotiations for which was reached at the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Phnom Penh on 20 November, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Read more…

Is Japan making the most of the US pivot?

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta addressing the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June this year, where he emphasised that the United States would continue to be a presence in the Asia-Pacific region. (Photo: Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo, US Department of Defense)

Author: Ryo Sahashi, Kanagawa University

Japan’s leadership has just overcome one of the most difficult challenges in a democracy: raising the nation’s consumption tax for social welfare.

After 49 members of the Diet broke away from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan in July 2012, a heated dispute over the timing of the next general election has ensued. Read more…

TPP may drive BRICS into action

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attends the plenary session of BRICS 2012 Summit in New Delhi, 29 March 2012. The exclusion of China from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) may lead to greater economic cooperation between BRICS. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Amitendu Palit, ISAS, NUS

The 14th round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership took place in Leesburg, Virginia from 6–15 September with Washington keen on wrapping it up before the presidential election in November.

The nine countries negotiating the TPP are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the US. Read more…

Noda’s unfinished agenda: is Japan TPP participation now more likely?

(From L to R) Former agriculture minister Michihiko Kano, former internal affairs minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi, former agriculture minister Hirotaka Akamatsu, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda ahead of the presidential election of the Democratic Party of Japan on 21 September 2012. Noda easily defeated his three challengers in the election. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal by Mitsuru Obe suggests that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will announce a decision to participate in the TPP after a cabinet reshuffle (scheduled for early October).

While a decision to participate in the TPP is highly unlikely, a decision to participate in the TPP talks is certainly possible. Read more…

Treaty-based investor–state dispute settlement mechanisms not all bad

Trade officials at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement talks in San Diego on 10 July 2012 (Photo:AAP).

Author: Luke Nottage, University of Sydney

The High Court of Australia on Wednesday rejected the argument by major tobacco companies that Australia’s plain packaging legislation is an unconstitutional ‘acquisition’ of their rights.

But the ongoing arbitration claim of ‘expropriation’ that Philip Morris Asia initiated under the 1993 Hong Kong–Australia bilateral investment treaty should not feed into a blanket rejection of any forms of investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) in investment treaties.

Read more…

A big deal: Canada and Mexico join the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and US President Barak Obama greet each other before the first meeting at the G20 summit in Losa Cabos, Mexico, 18 June 2012. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Claude Barfield, American Enterprise Institute

The most significant development during the G20 summit in Mexico occurred on the sidelines and was largely buried in media reports: the decision to invite Canada and Mexico to join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP).

Adding Mexico and Canada to the current nine-member TPP will result — if negotiations are successful — in a free trade area covering some 658 million people and about US$20.5 trillion in economic activity. Read more…