Japan is seeking to expand its foreign markets and push forward domestic economic reform through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), according to Yan Shenchun, an international economics scholar, writing for news portal
The Paper.
As its population declines and its domestic market has become saturated, Japan is increasingly reliant on foreign resources and overseas markets for sustainable economic growth, Yan said. It has become the Japanese government’s primary task to access a steady overseas market and expand its foreign trade and investment.
Japan is also believed to be expecting external pressures to restructure its economy. The Shinzo Abe government has already used the TPP as an opportunity to come up with substantial measures to push forward reforms in Japan Agriculture Cooperatives, corporation duty and consumption taxes, according to Yan.
Through pushing forward the TPP, Japan has endeavored to take up the leadership in designing economic and trade rules in the Asia-Pacific, thus having the region follow a set of trade standards ready to guarantee its own interests first and foremost.
After US President Donald Trump pulled out of the TPP and threatened to quit the WTO, Japan may be reliant on the Comprehensive Progressive TPP (known as the CPTPP) to resist bilateral trade pressures from the US. Japan is also ready to welcome the US to rejoin the scheme to prevent it from taking up a unilateral approach, Yan said.