U.S. exit from TPP 'a blow' to Japan's economic growth
China welcomes any country to join the Belt and Road initiative, but it will not make concessions to those which make demands to serve their own interests, Chinese experts said, in response to reports on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Monday remarks that Tokyo will consider conditional cooperation with the initiative.
At a forum on Monday in Tokyo on Asia's future, Abe said that China's Belt and Road initiative "has the potential to connect the East and the West as well as diverse regions in between." He added Japan is ready to cooperate with the cross-continental development scheme under the initiative with certain conditions, Japan's Kyodo News reported.
Abe stressed that it is "critical for infrastructure to be used by all, and to be developed through procurement that is transparent and fair," Kyodo News reported.
The conditions listed by Abe also included "harmony with a free and fair Trans-Pacific economic zone," alluding to the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact, to which Japan is a signatory but China is not, according to the report.
When asked to comment on Abe's remarks, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily press briefing on Tuesday that the Belt and Road initiative could become a new platform and test field for China and Japan where the two countries can realize mutual development and win-win cooperation.
China welcomes Japan to discuss cooperation on the development scheme under the initiative, and hopes that Japan's statement or aspiration to improve relations between the two countries will be fully implemented in policy and action, she said.
The shift in Abe's attitude toward the Belt and Road initiative reflected Tokyo's increasing concerns that it will be left out in the Asia-Pacific region, especially after the US' exit from the TPP, Gao Hong, deputy director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Abe's conditions are seemingly altruistic, but in fact are political bargain chips for its own interests, showcasing Tokyo's covert reluctance to admit China's leading role in the initiative, Gao noted.
Echoed with Gao's remarks, Liu Junhong, a research fellow in Japanese Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that the U.S.' exit from the TPP has been a blow to Japan's economic growth and strategy. He said the initiative schemes, which have been welcomed by over 130 countries, are too big and promising to ignore.
China confidently welcomes cooperation, even with Japan or India, which have expressed skepticism, and Beijing will use that confidence to prevent any country from sabotaging agreements reached under the initiative, Gao said.
