Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU Japan is now fully embarked on navigating a course through the economic and national security minefield that lies between the
Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU
Japan is now fully embarked on navigating a course through the economic and national security minefield that lies between the United States and China.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Chinese President Xi Jinping on a state visit next week, less than a month after meeting US President Donald Trump in New York.
After stalling for over 18 months since Mr Trump came to office, Tokyo acquiesced to US demands for bilateral trade negotiations late last month. It’s a defensive move aimed to stave off US Section 232 tariffs on Japanese automobiles — under the guise of US national security concerns — that would hit Japan’s most important and internationally competitive industry hard. Abe appears to have secured a stay on those tariffs in his recent meeting with Trump.
The risks and difficulties of negotiating with Trump are clear for all to see. Canada and Mexico have just kept NAFTA together in the face of the United States’ attempts to divide and conquer its North American partners with untenable bilateral demands. South Korea was forced to renegotiate the KORUS free trade agreement on inequitable terms at threat to its peninsula peace offensive.
Japan has declared it’ll limit opening up sensitive sectors to the levels of market access earlier agreed with the United States under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The Japanese aim to induce the United States back into the TPP through this route is unlikely to succeed but it might well save the bilateral relationship. Failed negotiations could see US tariffs imposed on Japanese cars and car parts, or worse. Trump has cast doubt over the US security umbrella on which Japan relies and which is being used as economic leverage under his unpredictable leadership.
Trump has succeeded in dealing bilaterally with countries as he forces them into the false choice of keeping US markets open or holding fast on multilateral trade. The only chance of resisting the march towards managed, discriminatory trade is for the rest of the world to stand up to Washington’s assault on global institutions, rules and openness. There are some signs of countries working together towards that objective, symbolised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaning over Trump at the G7 meeting last June.
