Changing Commercial Policy in Japan, 1985-2010

This article examines the changing nature of Japan's commercial policy over the last twenty-five years. The article is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the changing structures of trade, foreign direct investment, and the economy in Japan that underlay policy changes. Section 3 focuses on Japan's commercial policy between 1985 and 1999, when policy-makers adopted a two-track approach of relying on multilateral liberalization under the GATT/WTO and open regionalism under Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation on the one hand and on the bilateral trade relationship with the United States on the other. Section 4 examines Japan's more recent commercial policy since the turn of the century as the country increasingly began to rely on bilateral and plurilateral economic partnership agreements, particularly with-but not limited to-East Asian economies. It is argued that agricultural sector liberalization is key to the further integration of Japan with the Asian and global economies. Section 5 concludes.