Second-Tier Great Power in Power Transition: Japan's Trade Policy in East Asia

• In Event: East Asia and the Global Political Economy

Abstract

Japan has aimed to draw a regionwide trade agreement in East Asia since the mid-2000s. However, from the initial proposal of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia (CEPEA) in 2006, to the unexpected twist of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after the US withdrawal in 2017, and further to the less-than-satisfied conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (that is, RCEP without India) in 2019, Japan’s regional trade policy was far from consistent. My paper contends that power transition in international trade has complicated the environment of Japan’s regional trade policy-making in the past two decades. As a typical second-tier great power that plays a leading, but subordinate-to-the-hegemon, role in international trade, Japan faced the structural uncertainties arising from the rise of China, the decline of its economic influence, and the US’s increasingly protectionist trade policy. To cope with these uncertainties of power transition, I argue that Japan has adopted a status quo-oriented strategy in order to preserve its economic interests, maintain its privileged international status, and uphold the open and multilateral international trade order. As a result, though the geopolitical competition with China was crucial, Japan found it no less important to conclude a regionwide trade agreement in support of free trade in East Asia and beyond.

Author

• Min Shu, Waseda University