Japan's Agricultural Protection And Trade Liberalization In East Asia

As the world's second largest economy this day and age, Japan has been implementing the so called'Wild Goose Mode'in East Asia over the years, and has considered itself the leading'wild goose'in the economic development and cooperation of East Asia. However, after the end of the Cold War, especially in the process of trade liberalization in East Asia characterized by a bilateral free trade, Japan did not show the positive attitude that a leading force should demonstrate in East Asia's economic cooperation. On the contrary, Japan's trade liberalization level is relatively left behind, and one of the most important reasons is that Japan has been implementing agricultural protectionist policies, hindering its free trade agreement negotiation with foreign nations and impacting the process of East Asian economic integration.Being an industrialized country whose economy is highly developed, Japan's agricultural industry only occupies a small proportion, in terms of the total number of employees or the GDP. Why does Japan eager to provide protection for such a "sunset industry", sacrificing its significant benefits in foreign trade and diplomatic affairs? The level of urbanization in Japan has reached 66% in 2005. The vast majority of Japan's urban population suffer from the high prices of agricultural products caused by the country's agricultural protection, but why they do not carry out corresponding opposition movement? Also, a large number of industrial products are exported abroad, the negative effects brought by agricultural protection to the industrial export products are the obvious, but why the Japanese economy community does not strongly protest against its agricultural protection? In the sixth round of Japan-Korea FTA negotiation, Japan's not meeting the requirements for opening its agricultural markets directly led to the fail of the negotiation. Besides, Japan-Australia EPA progress slowly, delaying an agreement. This is also due to Japan's refusal to fully open up its market for agricultural products that some farmers even are against Australia's joining EPA. The purpose of this thesis is to answer these questions from the multi-level prospects of Japan's politics, economy, culture and international relations. It aims to systematically studies the underlying causes of Japan's agricultural protection and illustrates the profound influence caused by its agricultural protection on the process of East Asia's integration.At present, China is in the phase of rapid economic development and accelerating urbanization, but the gap between urban and rural is expanding. How to increase farmers income while in the rapid development of economy is one of the major issues faced by our country. As the saying goes:"Stones from other hills can also be useful.", Japan's experience is still a valuable resources that we can learn from, and this is also is the starting point and main purpose of this thesis.This thesis employs the research method of combining theoretical and practical analysis. Through the data and charts collected from Japan's official MAFF website, the thesis clearly illustrates the critical position the agricultural economy holds in Japan's economy, and reveals the root causes of Japan's agricultural protection. The thesis contents are as follows:Introduction:this section first explains the topic background, research objectives and theoretical and practical purpose, then is followed by the review of the reference literatures. Also, it describes the framework of this thesis as well as its innovation and drawbacks.Part Two uses the official data to study agriculture's position in the Japan's economy, and sums up the characteristics of Japan's agriculture, paving the road for the discussion following.Part Three analyzes the current status of Japan's agricultural protection and its specific protection methods, and uses the interest group theory to clarify Japan agriculture's 'triangle interests'. It also introduces the reasons of Japan's agricultural protection.Part Four pointes out, under the background of trade liberalization in East Asia, the impact and pressure caused by Japan's agricultural protection. It divides Japan cooperation policy in East Asian during 1997-2009 into three stages, analyzing the influence of Japan's agricultural protection in East Asia's economic cooperation.This final part is the conclusion, which summarizes the lessons learned of the agricultural protection in Japan. Also it indicates the inspiration that Japan's agricultural protection brings to China, and poses some practical proposals. This innovation of this thesis is mainly reflected in the following two aspects:First, it explores Japan's agricultural protection from the perspective of the conflicts and compromise between interest groups. Though the Agricultural Cooperative Organization is an important organization in Japan, protecting the interests of agriculture and agricultural association is bound to harm the interests of other interest groups, such as consumer groups. In fact, Japan's largest agricultural and economic group--the Japanese Federation of Economic Organizations had bitter conflicts with other interest groups in the liberalization of agricultural products in the early 1980s. Why Japan's latest economic productivity was not able to win a relatively inferior interest group? At the same time, agricultural liberalization has not been achieved and the price of agricultural products still remain high. If this first does harm to its consumers, whether there are confrontation and conflicts between consumer groups and farmers? By answering these questions, the thesis not only analyzes the full prospects of Japan's agricultural protection, but also lies the foundation for further study of Japanese interest groups.Second, the thesis examines whether there are some changes in Japan's agricultural protection, under the pressure of trade liberalization in East Asia. And if so, what kind of changes they are and whether these changes are expedients or strategic shifts. It then examines the impacts of Japan's agricultural protection on the process of East Asia integration.Due to the author's limited theoretical level and the lack of sufficient reference literature and statistical data, the analysis of the problems might be inadequate or not thorough and in-depth. In the future studying, the author will continue to gradually broaden her international perspective, enhance her analytical skills and improve her level of research.