The Research Of Impetus And Restricting Factors Of Japan's Access To TPP

In the post-crisis era, the recovery of the global economy is slow and shaky. Some Asian countries, like Korea, Japan and India are actively placing the Strategy of Implementing Free Trade Zones on the priority agenda of their nations, to seek to safeguard their economic recovery and to respond to the increasingly fierce international competition. At the same time, in November 2010, Japan, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit made comments on the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) for the first time and put it into the Yokohama Vision. It shows that APEC has mentioned TPP alongside the ASEAN plus 3 and ASEAN plus 6, and definitely recognizes TPP as one of the paths to achieve their ultimate common goal, which is to have a free trade area encompassing the entire Asia Pacific region. Because of the proportionality in structure of distribution, expansibility and inclusiveness, especially with the strong promotion by the USA which regards TPP as an available means to reshape the economic and trade pattern of Asia-Pacific area, TPP is accelerating the expansion speed and is overwhelmingly likely to become the realistic avenue for the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific. Based on this, the Japanese government takes the hosting of the 18th APEC summit as a big opportunity, give positive consideration to the joining TPP and do some advance-phase preparation. Though Japanese government wants to take part in TPP out of many foreign and domestic reasons, there are some big obstacles that will obstruct the process. So, there are big questions about whether Japan can join TPP successfully.As a global economic power, doubtlessly, Japan plays a big part in Asia-Pacific area. If Japan can break down all obstacles to join TPP successfully, it will change the existing economic and trade pattern of Asia-Pacific area and will affect the other multilateral trade system in the area.This dissertation tries to clarify the impetus and obstacles in Japan's entry into the TPP from three aspects of economics, politics and diplomacy, and then closely connects with the latest development to discuss the prospect of Japan's TPP accession. This not only helps us to understand the Japan government's (especially the Democratic Party of Japan taking power for the first time) trade policy and strategic option, but also can provide reference for the Chinese government to make trade policy decisions in the new situation. Those are the background and the purpose of this thesis.There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter one is the foreword, mainly introducing the background and significance, main view and frame structure, domestic and international research current situation. The chapter two is the review and the latest developments of Japan's FTA policy. With the review of Japan's FTA policy and the significance of the fast developing TPP, this chapter emphasizes the latest strategic orientation of Japan's FTA policy. The chapter three deals with the Japan government's motives to seek to join the TPP, which is the first core part of this text. This chapter analyzes and explores the issue from three aspects, changing the backward situation of FTA development, advancing the reform of the agriculture, and restructuring US-Japan Security relations. Fourth chapter mainly discusses the obstacles in Japan's seeking to join the TPP, which is the second core part of this text. The obstacle mainly comes from three aspects:the protective agriculture, un-coordinated and confused government and the diplomatic quandary. The chapter five is about the Japan government's polices and the prospect of Japan's entry to TPP. This chapter is the conclusion of related discussion.The article, referring to the dissertation concerned and production of same theses in recent years, makes a more systemic discuss on this subject. The research makes some contribution from three aspects. First, the paper systemizes scattered viewpoints on this subject and tries to use the latest dates and information to clarify concerned issues. Second, to argue the backwardness in the Japan's FTA development, the article uses the trade liberalization rate calculated by the volume of trade to show the backwardness quantitatively, and shows the backwardness in quality by the ratio of the products of which the tariffs are supposed to be abolished. Third, the paper makes a judgment on the prospect of Japan's entry to TPP, which will be some helpful reference for related people. Indeed, this paper is not perfect and there are still many problems need to be further discussed. First, an important foreign trade policy involves in many aspects of a nation, and also be a process of benefit gambling among many interest groups. So is the Japan's seeking to take part in TPP. Due to the time and my ability, there are some important issues are not mentioned or not explained adequately. Second, it requires high capability and arduous effort to systemize the scattered viewpoints in networks, newspapers, but in this regard, I regret I haven't done too well. Besides, most of the development mentioned by this paper is happened recently, so whether the conclusion can stand the test of time remains to be seen.