Misunderstanding Brexit

United Kingdom chose the way of turning back to the integration of nations for eternal peace. Britain’s leaving European Union would decelerate regional integration everywhere in the world and make the nations insist on preserving sovereignty from penetration of aliens. Not understanding those impacts well, the Japanese were simply appalled by unusually volatile move of markets.

Divided U.K. showed difference faces. Prime Minister, David Cameron, admitted his defeat as a pro-E.U. leader. “British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected,” told Cameron, with his mouth firmly shut, in front of 10 Downing Street, and announcd his stepping down. “Let June 23^rd go down in our history as our independence day,” said Nigel Farage, leader of U.K. Independence Party, with victorious smile on his face.

Asahi Shimbun reported the news with an analytical article on its front page. “E.U. is losing its raison d’être and facing ever greatest crisis with possibility of self-collapse. The regional integration under the leadership of elites and concept-oriented, which had started from the oath of no war after World War II, is ending,” described the article. It elaborated that elitist politics in Brussels far away from the people faced strong protests.

But, Japanese TVs were reporting the interviews to the people in Tokyo, who were mostly worried about steep decline of Tokyo Stock Market. Nikkei Average on Friday marked ¥1,286 down and ended its exchanges at ¥14,952. With speculation that it must be relatively stable, Japanese yen was bought to the temporary level of ¥99 to one U.S. dollar. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe insisted on international cooperation in the Cabinet meeting Friday evening, saying “In Ise-Shima G7 Summit, the leaders agreed on properly taking every measure to avoid precipitation of new crisis.” Unfortunately, U.K. was one of those seven nations required to cooperate.

It is expected that volatility of international economy stemming from Brexit will damage Abe’s economic policy called Abenomics, which has been promoted by stock prices raised by lowly valued Japanese yen. One of the frontrunners of Abenomics, Toyota Motors, is suffering from higher cost for exporting cars to from the factories in U.K. to E.U. markets. The negotiation over economic partnership agreement between Japan and E.U. became unforeseeable.

Government of Japan warns closer relationship between U.K. and China. It is possible for U.K. to lift the embargo on arms after it leaves E.U. For Japan, containment policy toward China can be harder to achieve than ever. No one in Japan can be optimistic on Brexit.