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| Author: | Edward J. Lincoln, Director, Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies, New York University |
|---|
September 24, 2003
Newsweek Japan
As Japan debates the difficult question of dispatching soldiers to Iraq, I
want to raise a very different aspect of the Japanese role in global
affairs: agricultural issues in the Doha round of WTO trade negotiations.
The two may appear unrelated, but in reality there is a strong linkage, and
agriculture may be the more important.
The Doha round is addressing the issue of trade and economic
development. Poor developing countries need to expand exports to support
their economic development. Economic evidence strongly supports the positive
role of trade in fostering development and industrialization. At the present
time, the United States, Japan and Europe all have relatively low tariffs on
average. But those barriers that we still have often apply to products
coming from developing countries, putting those countries at a disadvantage.
This problem is especially true of agriculture. At the Cancun meeting of the
WTO, however, the Japanese government played an obstructionist role in the
attempt to resolve these issues.
How does this relate to security issues? Poverty provides a breeding
ground for war and terrorism. Recruits to Al Qaeda and other terrorist
groups come mostly from impoverished societies. American policy in the war
on terrorism has focused on apprehending terrorists and toppling the regimes
in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, if we really want to win the war on
terrorism we need to eliminate the root causes of terrorism. Those causes
are complex, but certainly poverty is one central element.
Japan could make a major contribution in this area. Unlike the possible
dispatch of military forces to Iraq, there is no constitutional constraint
on being more of a leader in opening agricultural markets. I have long felt
that Japanese society has been overly focused on the question of
participation in military action and not focused enough on alternative ways
to contribute to global security and development. Rather than being a leader
in opening markets to the benefit of developing countries, however, Japan
has been a laggard among developed nations.
Agricultural import barriers and subsidies to farmers have been a
problem in the United States, Japan and Europe. We all must share the blame.
However, the U.S. government has taken the lead in offering cuts in barriers
and subsidies. Prior to the just-completed Cancun meeting of the WTO, the
U.S. government got the Europeans to agree to a basic framework that should
provide a starting point for hammering out a compromise solution on
agriculture with the developing world. Where was Japan? Why cannot Japan be
the leader, pushing the United States and Europe rather than the other way
around?
The answer supposedly lies in a number of arguments against agricultural
liberalization that have been used in Japan. All of these arguments are
wrong.
One is the need to preserve domestic production for the sake of food
security. Nonsense. The reality is that we live in an interdependent world,
relying on imports for energy, agriculture and manufactured goods. Our lives
depend as much on those manufactured goods and energy as they do on
agriculture. Japan already imports a significant portion of domestic food
needs, so an increase will not make much difference in "security." Besides,
security comes in many forms, including stockpiles, long-term contracts,
diversification of sources of supply and other measures.
Another argument has been culture. Rice, I have been told countless
times, is so central to Japanese culture that the rest of the world must
understand that substantial imports are impossible. Nonsense. All societies
were agriculturally based until a hundred years ago, and we all have the
same sentimental attachment to farming. Beef and the Western cowboy are as
central to the American self-image as rice is in Japan. But we have all been
moving rapidly away from these historical roots. The reality in Japan is
that rice is not central to society any more, and is rapidly fading further.
The time has come for all of us to abandon our national cultural
mythologies, at least to the extent that they affect trade policy, and that
need is greatest in Japan.
Finally, some argue that agriculture is essential to preserving the
environment. Nonsense. Agriculture can be quite destructive to the
environment, and perhaps especially so in Japan. Japanese farmers use almost
20 times more pesticides per hectare and 4 times as much fertilizer as do
American farmers. Pesticides and fertilizer have a bad habit of polluting
surrounding air and water, harming the health of humans and wildlife.
Japanese farmers and their political supports have bamboozled the public
for many years with these sorts of specious arguments concerning
agriculture. In the past, those of use arguing for liberalization usually
focused on the high cost to Japanese consumers of these protectionist
policies. But the war on terrorism adds a new urgency to the issue. The time
has come for the public and the government to break out of the narrow-minded
beliefs of the past and recognize that Japan can play a major role in global
security even without sending soldiers to Iraq
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