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The future of agriculture in Japan and the outlook for the TPP negotiations were both prominently featured in Prime Minister Abe's February 12 address to the Diet, Japan's parliament. In some respects, it was a speech similar to a State of the Union address by an American president, though arguably somewhat less political - after all it is the Diet who chooses the prime minister - and perhaps a better guide to near term government actions. As today's quote suggests, those topics - and the intersection between them - are what this TTALK entry is about.
Still, it seems wrong not to acknowledge in some way the sweep of the speech. So, before we turn to TPP and agriculture, here are a few of the other things Prime Minister Abe talked about in his February 12 speech:
Terrorism. "Japan will never give in to terrorism," Prime Minister Abe said. That was near the beginning of his speech, just after his expressions of grief and sympathy for the families over the murder of two Japanese nationals at the hands of the Islamic State in Syria-Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa. (Bringing this up to date, terrorism, Syria, ISIS, and of course Iran were all prominently mentioned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech earlier today to a joint session of Congress.)
Diplomacy. "The Japan-U.S. Alliance is the linchpin of our diplomacy," Mr. Abe said before discussing other key relationships, including those with China, South Korea, North Korea, and Russia. He lamented the fact that, although the Second World War has been over for seventy years, Russia and Japan have yet to sign a peace treaty recognizing the war's end. Looking ahead, the Prime Minister said, "Japan will bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council."
Natural Disasters and Recovery. To say the least, Japan has had more than its share of earthquakes and other natural disasters. The most recent of these (we believe) was the eruption of Mount Ontake last September, which killed 57 people. Mount Ontake, near Nagoya, is Japan's second highest volcanic mountain after Mount Fuji.
The disaster or rather series of disasters that most seriously challenged the people and the government of Japan, however, was the Great East Japan Earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011, and the prime minister talked about many of the recovery efforts still underway and/or being completed. The earthquake is sometimes called the Tohoku Earthquake, after the northeastern region of Honshu which was hit hardest by the quake and tsunami. "In March," Prime Minister Abe said, "we will fully reopen the Joban Expressway, which runs through the disaster-affected areas in Tohoku."
These are all very large topics. So too are ones not really discussed here but very much a part of the Mr. Abe's speech, such as empowering women, changes in tax policy, and more flexible approaches to education. To repeat, it was a wide ranging speech.
AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN
We do not fully understand them, but it seems clear to us that the changes in agricultural policy announced by Prime Minister Abe on February 12 are serious and potentially profound. In the United States, one tends to see Japanese agricultural policy through the lens of America's trade agenda. That is understandable and, we suspect, fully appreciated in Japan. It is also understandable, however, that satisfying America's trade demands is not the fundamental reason for these reforms.
More than 16 million Japanese worked in agriculture at the end of World War II, the prime minister said. The figure today is two million. And the average age of those farmers is 66. One of the prime minister's goals is to make agriculture more attractive to young people in Japan. In broader terms, the Prime Minister asked the rhetorical question, what is the purpose of the government's agricultural reforms? And then he answered it:
"The government will advance reforms to create a strong agricultural sector and to increase the incomes of those engaged in agricultural businesses."
Details of these reforms will emerge over time, and with each set of details there will be new assessments as to what they mean for Japan and for her trading partners. For now, we'll close out this context with the following three comments from Prime Minister Abe:
- "The current structure of centralized cooperatives as provided for under the Agricultural Cooperatives Act will be abolished and the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-ZENCHU) will become a general incorporated association."
- "Agriculture business ... will work ... to open up a new future to agriculture in Japan, including the development of branding for local produce and overseas businesses."
- "Agriculture is the very backbone of Japan."
JAPAN AND TPP
It is not clear just how these reforms will affect the TPP negotiations, and the prime minister didn't say. We assume that some of them will enable the greater openness that TPP will require and Japan's partners will demand. That the connection between agriculture and TPP was very much on Mr. Abe's mind and the minds of his audience seems obvious from the flow of the argument. As soon as he finished talking about agricultural reform, the prime minister took up the issue of TPP. "We have finally come to see the way forward in the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership," he said.
Seeing the way forward doesn't mean concluding the deal right now, however. The TPP negotiators will meet in Hawaii next week, and today Japan is in the business of lowering expectations for that meeting. Japan's Deputy Chief Negotiator, Hiroshi Oe, was quoted in an AP report earlier today saying, "I am not sure we are really ready to close those negotiations this week." He did, however, hold out the possibility of a deal "this spring."
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