Japan's PM Noda Yoshihiko held a 20-minute Press Conference at 8 pm yesterday, 11 November, and said that Japan will enter into conferring with the interested parties with the aim of joining the negotiations for the TTP(Trans-Pacific Partnership). He did so in the teeth of deep split within the ruling Democratic Party, which advised the PM and the Government to be cautious about joining the negotiations.
Behind this caution is a strong apprehension as to the future of, first and foremost, agriculture and dairy in this country, as was discussed in the previous blog and even before. It is estimated that 90% of domestic rice production will be gone. Reflecting this, almost all the local newspapers are opposed to Japan's joining the TTP. Only a few pro-capital national papers are in support of it.
The PM, not unaware of this apprehension, told the Press that the Government will concentrate its effort on strenghening the competitiveness of large-scale farming. But it is not convincing, in view of the fact that even in Hokkaido, the northernmost major island, where the competitiveness is considered to be greater than elsewhere with its larger-sized farms, the farmers are strongly opposed to the TTP.
The PM said that, Japan being a trade-dependent country, the need of the time is to bring in the energy of the vibrant Asia to revitalize the Japanese economy. But neither China nor India have been or are likely to be a part of it. It will simply end up with importing more products from the US. It will be practically nothing more than the Japan-US FTA. We must watch Korea carefully now, which has just concluded FTA with the US, but there are dissatisfactions with the agreement. It is wrong to characterize Japan as a trade-dependent nation. We have relied to a far greater extent on the growth of the domestic purchasing power. It is this power that has been greatly damaged in the past two decades by the policies and are badly in need of reconstructing.
If so, when the PM told the Press that he is determined to rebuild a stable society supported by wide strata of the middle classes, but he is simply talking untruth, however beautiful his words may be. How to rebuild middle classes exposed to a strong northern wind called TTP, under the burden of heavy taxes, high cost of medical care, education, housing, etc., or with a considerable part of the industrial base transferred abroad, as is shown by the recent floods in Thailand affecting all the car manufacturers in Japan.
Finally TTP is not just agricultural, or industrial. It includes 24 different sectors. What are expected in those sectors are not known yet, or the Government is not kind enough to inform the people.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Japanese Farmers and the TTP
The harvesting season is almost over in the rice fields around the country. But some of the farmers, especially in Fukushima Prefecture where the ill-fated nuclear plants are located, are working hard to protect their crops from radioactivity. Or to prepare the ground for the next year's planting.
Their originality is startling. They are determined to reduce the amount of the radioactivity their crops may absorb from the rice field to infinitely near the zero point. And by so doing to call back the consumers to them, some of them with many years' ties, who have left them because of the fear of the fallout. They say that the Government and the Prefectural Offices are moving too slowly with whatever research and experiments they are doing.
Thus some of the farmers themselves are trying to see how they should cultivate the land, especially how deeply they should do it, what is the proper way of mixing the surface with the deeper soil, and so on. The soil itself, the fertile soil, has been the product of their long years of labour.
Sometimes, the needle in their gauge suddenly goes up, pointing to the presence of the fallout near the small streams coming down from the side of the mountains facing the nuclear plants, and the farmers are up against the threat in collaboration with researchers from the universities etc.
The above has been taken from the NHK broadcasting of yesterday, 8 November. While admiring the efforts by the farmers to contain the fallout and to continue to produce safe and delicious rice as before, however, it is not my main point to summarize the broadcast. My point is that the TPP, into which the US and our own Government are trying to drag us, will simply take no notice of those voluntary, individual and creative efforts by the unassuming farmers. They think nothing of the almost probable damage our agriculture will be destined to suffer.
If Japan is to join the TPP, she will do it under the heavy US pressure. As it is the TPP will nothing much more than the US-Japan Free Trade Agreement. The readers will be surprised to know that, toward the end of October, a former high-ranking US official said in Tokyo in reference to the growing opposition in Japan to joining the TPP that agriculture accounts for only 1.2% of Japan's GDP, implying that the opposition from that quarter can be safely ignored. He also said that the agriculturalists' lobby is similarly being ignored in the US. Moreover he also said that Japan should increase her defense budget, loosen restrictions on the export of arms, and to revise the Article 9 of the Constitution so that the Self-Defense Forces of Japan should operate together with the US forces. Naked interference in our internal affairs, and only in the US interests.
It is true that our rice farming is facing heavy odds. But every rice field is a small dam, since every hectare of it holds 30 tons of water. Without it our land will go the way of desertification. We should defend them as they are.
One last thing. Way back in 1991, the Philippine Senate refused to ratify the treaty to keep the US bases in that country. The above official went round the opposition Senators to dissuade them from voting 'No'. He and others failed. What would be the ASEAN like today if there were US bases in one of its member countries? And how would we call people like him? Ambassadors of peace?
Their originality is startling. They are determined to reduce the amount of the radioactivity their crops may absorb from the rice field to infinitely near the zero point. And by so doing to call back the consumers to them, some of them with many years' ties, who have left them because of the fear of the fallout. They say that the Government and the Prefectural Offices are moving too slowly with whatever research and experiments they are doing.
Thus some of the farmers themselves are trying to see how they should cultivate the land, especially how deeply they should do it, what is the proper way of mixing the surface with the deeper soil, and so on. The soil itself, the fertile soil, has been the product of their long years of labour.
Sometimes, the needle in their gauge suddenly goes up, pointing to the presence of the fallout near the small streams coming down from the side of the mountains facing the nuclear plants, and the farmers are up against the threat in collaboration with researchers from the universities etc.
The above has been taken from the NHK broadcasting of yesterday, 8 November. While admiring the efforts by the farmers to contain the fallout and to continue to produce safe and delicious rice as before, however, it is not my main point to summarize the broadcast. My point is that the TPP, into which the US and our own Government are trying to drag us, will simply take no notice of those voluntary, individual and creative efforts by the unassuming farmers. They think nothing of the almost probable damage our agriculture will be destined to suffer.
If Japan is to join the TPP, she will do it under the heavy US pressure. As it is the TPP will nothing much more than the US-Japan Free Trade Agreement. The readers will be surprised to know that, toward the end of October, a former high-ranking US official said in Tokyo in reference to the growing opposition in Japan to joining the TPP that agriculture accounts for only 1.2% of Japan's GDP, implying that the opposition from that quarter can be safely ignored. He also said that the agriculturalists' lobby is similarly being ignored in the US. Moreover he also said that Japan should increase her defense budget, loosen restrictions on the export of arms, and to revise the Article 9 of the Constitution so that the Self-Defense Forces of Japan should operate together with the US forces. Naked interference in our internal affairs, and only in the US interests.
It is true that our rice farming is facing heavy odds. But every rice field is a small dam, since every hectare of it holds 30 tons of water. Without it our land will go the way of desertification. We should defend them as they are.
One last thing. Way back in 1991, the Philippine Senate refused to ratify the treaty to keep the US bases in that country. The above official went round the opposition Senators to dissuade them from voting 'No'. He and others failed. What would be the ASEAN like today if there were US bases in one of its member countries? And how would we call people like him? Ambassadors of peace?
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