Agricultural Trade Regime and Japan's Import Liberalization:In Search of International Political Economy
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概要
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In 1988 the Japanese government made two historical decisions on agricultural trade. One was to liberalize eight residual import restriction items including tomato juice, which the GATT judged illegal under its rule. The other was to announce import liberalization on beef and orange from 1991 in response to the U. S.'s strong request. Because of these measures the level of Japan's import liberalization on agricultural products became almost equal to that of other highly developed industrial countries. Why was Japan far behind Western countries in trade liberalization on agricultural items? Conventional wisdom explains that Japan's ruling party, supported by agricultural sectors, opposed to open domestic market on foreign products for fear of being defeated at an election.The paper provides a slightly different interpretation on this question. International conditions as well as domestic political reasons should be considered. Japan has been slow to open its market since any international regime on agricultural trade was underdeveloped. In other words Japan justified the delay of agricultural import liberalization because of "weak" regime. In the first part, the paper makes it clear that the GATT rules on agricultural commerce are "weak" compared with that on industrial commodities. For instance, inhibition of quantitative restriction, the basic GATT rule, is not applied to agricultural commodities. Export subsidies, are exceptionally admitted for agriculture.In the second part, the paper discuses why a "weak" regime was established. The same rule of industrial commodities is not applied to agricultural products brcause of two reasons. One is the attribute of agricultural products strongly influenced by climatic and geographical factors. The other is more abstract. Almost no countries including the U. S., which overwhelmingly occupied the export market, had complained of the agricultural "weak" regime.The United States recently however tries to strengthen this "weak" regime at the Uruguay Round, the GATT multirateral trade negotiation. The U. S. government, facing agricultural economic difficulties, insists on making the regime more strict through the repeal of quantitative restrictions and the prohibition of export subsidies. The U. S. still wants to expand agricultural exports to decrease overproduction of agricultural products. The U. S. administration, however, has to reduce its large export subsidies, expended to compete with the international market, because of its budget deficit. That is why the U. S. insists on reforming the agricultural trade regime. The European Community, which gradually increased its market share of the agricultural trade on account of export subsidies, has not agreed with the U. S. In the final part the paper argues why Japan has liberalized agricultural imports under this "weak" regime.
- 一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会の論文
一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会 | 論文
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