Will Japan’s dim view of US Indo-Pacific strategy overshadow Biden’s Tokyo visit?

Japan perceives Washington’s IPEF policy undermines the CPTPP, which Tokyo worked to develop after the US withdrew from the forerunner of the deal, the TPP

Donald Trump withdrew the US from the TPP, and one analyst believes there is ‘not a snowball in hell’s chance’ the US will rejoin the CPTPP

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U.S. President Joe Biden hosts a virtual Covid-19 Summit as part of the United Nations General Assembly at the White House in September 2021.Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:00pm, 12 May 2022Updated: 4:04pm, 12 May 2022

Joe Biden is expected to receive a warm welcome when he arrives in Japan later this month for the first time as the US President, although the reception for his envisaged new economic integration plan is likely to be far chillier.

Biden’s visit will coincide with the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to counter China’s clout in Asia. The new initiative comes after the US withdrawal from talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) regional trade agreement under his predecessor as president, Donald Trump.

Biden is set to make the announcement during his first visit to allies South Korea and Japan since taking office, which will run from May 20-24.

While the US sees the IPEF as a complementary economic pact, Japan perceives it undermining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which Tokyo worked to develop after Trump’s 2017 withdrawal of the US from its predecessor, the TPP.

Two former ministers, who remain key members of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, have already indicated Tokyo is deeply uneasy with the US proposal.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington last week, former foreign minister Taro Kono and former justice minister Takashi Yamashita, said Japan had made deep concessions to ensure the TPP could be signed in February 2016 by the original 11 Pacific Rim nations – only for Trump to walk away less than a year later.

Former US President Donald Trump holds up an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January 2017. The decree ended US participation in a sweeping trans-Pacific free trade agreement negotiated under former president Barack Obama. Photo: AFP

Kono said: “Now the Biden administration is talking about the Indo-Pacific Economic whatever, I would say forget about it.”