The US, Japan, and trade liberalization: From bilateralism to regional multilateralism to regionalism

In: The Pacific review, Band 16, Heft 3, S. 307-329

Abstract

Japan's foreign economic policy has undergone two crucial changes in the past decade and a half: first the shift from predominantly US-Japan bilateralism to the addition of regional multilateralism, and the recent extension to regional bilateral FTAs for the first time. To what extent did these shifts in Japan's behavior in the trade area represent a deep shift in the purposes and goals of Japanese foreign economic policy? This article looks at how American policy changes and developments in the US-Japan relationship, and economic globalization, produced the changes in Japan's domestic policy thinking and process that led to these outcomes and to the particular pattern of development of these policy shifts... (Pacific Review/DÜI)