Japan's Participation in TPP Negotiation: Prospect and Policy Implications for Korea

Since March 2010, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiations have been taking place, where members have expanded into the 11 Asia-Pacific countries from the original Pacific 4 (P4: Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, and Brunei). The P4 has rooted in the P5, where the United States initiated the liberalization of trade and investment among only P5 countries (the United States, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Chile) to overcome the limits of APEC’s open regionalism in the late 1990s. However, the United States and Australia could not join the negotiations because of their respective domestic political problems. The current TPP negotiation is said to have been formally launched in March 2010 when the United States joined the P4 with Australia, Peru, and Vietnam. Meanwhile, Malaysia was approved to participate in the TPP negotiations since October 2010; Canada and Mexico joined in December 2012. The current 11 TPP negotiating countries aim to reach the framework agreement until the APEC summit that will be held in October 2013 in Bali, Indonesia, and the final agreement until the end of 2013. The TPP, as a part of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), has been known as an open and multilateral FTA that aims to be a comprehensive and a highly liberalized agree-ment among the 21 APEC countries.