Blinded by the Government

The result was not overall agreement, but agreement by the end of this year. Twelve leaders delivered a joint statement after a meeting of Trans-Pacific Partnership in Bali, Indonesia, in which they promised to go forward to a comprehensive and well-balanced regional agreement. Japan delegation, which kept on saying that leaders would achieve an overall agreement, was busy for explaining the result. All stemmed from the basic attitude of bureaucrats not to share information with the nations.

Although the parties had agreed on some issues including information service and assistance for emerging countries, a lot of issues still remain without final breakthrough. They are access to market, intellectual property, environment, government procurement and so on. The absence of President of the United States cast a shadow on the process of meeting seeking broader agreement. While they would be making efforts to have final agreement, it was unclear whether they could achieve the goal originally set by the leadership of U.S.

For Japan, agriculture is the most controversial area among all. Leading Liberal Democratic Party had been explaining that five products, --rice, wheat, beef and pork, dairy products, and origin of sweets--, would be protected as exemptions of non-tariff principle, which did not make sense from the beginning. As the negotiation reached agreements in some issues, the party turned its attitude from protecting all of five to “considering which market can be opened.”

Frustration of the people is represented by these words; “What’s going on?” At the time when Japan joined the negotiation, the explanation of government and LDP was “We go there to see how the negotiation goes. If it harms our national interest, we may step out of it.” After multi-national negotiation ended, they said “Well, we are going to have bilateral meetings with parties for now. Negotiation is still in the early stage.” Next message the Japanese heard from delegation was “Ok, we are having overall agreement.” It is fair that the people thought it as a deception.

Most people realize the difficulty of insisting five crucial agricultural products to be protected in the framework of high-level free trade. For them, political responsibility matters the most. LDP promised in the election last year that it would protest abolition of tariffs without sanctuary. What its lawmakers are doing is to break that promise shamelessly, just following bureaucrats, mainly from Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Economy, Trade and Industry. As long as bureaucrats keep on hiding the negotiation process, responsible politics will not root in Japan.