Along with a Cheating Scenario

It was a soap opera. The Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Barack Obama agreed with not setting a condition of removing all tariffs before joining the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Both leaders smiled at the cameras, their hands shaking together, appealing an achievement in the meeting at the White House on Friday.

So, what was the achievement? Japan has no choice except joining TPP, if it were living in the bloc of free trade, democracy, liberty, and in short America. Joining the free-trade negotiation is a natural result. But the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is supported by farmers and industries, have been pretending to be reluctant to joining it. For an audience, supporters angry with the cheating also look like foolish. It has been played on a cheap scenario.

The starting point was the campaign promise of LDP last fall. LDP promised that it would not accept TPP as long as it upheld abolition of tariff without any exception. Making a contrast to the Democratic Party of Japan, which announced its willingness of joining TPP, LDP looked like negative to it, and won the election. But LDP’s promise rhetorically meant that it would accept TPP, if an exception had been set. Abe agreed with Obama that no promise of tariff abolition was required before joining the negotiation. Although the agreement did not mean allowing an exception, Abe announced as if the deal made exceptions available.

For America, it was not so difficult to set the no-promise rule, because TPP would still be the table for talking about non-tariff system without exception. There is no soccer player who promise before a match not to use his/her hand while playing the game. If a player intentionally used hands, he/she will be punished and booed. And if a player changed rule of the game, it will no longer be a soccer game, and the audiences stop watching and are going home. US could expect that the rule should be kept even after a handball player, Japan, would join in.

So, in this win-win game, Japan and US might have sharing a scenario of the deal. The Chairwoman of the Policy Bureau of LDP, Sanae Takaichi, set a press conference just after the Japan-US summit meeting. The timing indicated that she might have known the deal would be made. She announced that the party would support the decision of Abe. With the support of LDP, Abe is going to officially announce early next month that Japan will join TPP, insisting that the decision was made within the campaign promise.

Nobody knows whether the trade negotiation will harm Japanese economy, especially agriculture. But it is sure that the cheating of politicians harms the sentiment of innocent people.