Free Trade Agreement and Japanese Agricultural Policy: the background of FTA and the promotion of it in Japan (2)

The reasons for

Japan

having taken a negative attitude toward FTA were (a)geographical circumstances, (b)a Japan-U.S. trade dispute, and (c)the difficulty of the liberalization of the agriculture in particular.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (orthographic projection)

a. Geographical Circumstances

In each area except East Asia, there was a flow to promote a local trade agreement from　1950's to 1970's, and there was a model on promoting a local trade agreement in 1990's. In contrast, in East Asia, there was not a local trade agreement except AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area) where ASEAN nations agreed in 1992, and East Asia was under a state in which there was not an imminent model. In addition, East Asia economy except Japan where a bubble collapsed had an economic growth invited to "a miracle" continues to a currency crisis of 1997, and the

Japan

was not able to find a positive reason to change a past way. Furthermore, China was in the middle of WTO participation negotiations and did not yet become the stage to meddle with FTA. By the above-mentioned circumstances, there was not the model of the FTA for Japan, and the pressure to conclude FTA with Japan was hard to happen.

Long-grain rice plants

The difficulty of the Liberalization of the Agriculture

According to GATT Article 24 that is grounds method of the FTA, as a formation condition of the FTA, it needed to remove a wall about substantially all trades. Although the interpretation of GATT Article 24 was not clarity, it was expected that it must take some kind of liberalization steps in agricultural products. Thus, based on Japanese traditional rejection for the agricultural products liberalization, it was not a realistic thing. In particular, not being passiveness, what Japan starts to say the FTA conclusion for other countries means to commit the liberalization of the agricultural products by oneself, which was the choice that it was hard to take for the person concerned with government.