Shinzo Abe loses ally in TPP trade deal
FT | February 23, 2015
Shinzo Abe loses ally in TPP trade deal
Robin Harding in Tokyo
Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, has lost an important ally on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal after his agriculture minster resigned in a scandal over political donations.
Koya Nishikawa, a 72-year-old stalwart of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, stepped down amid questions about a Y1m donation from an organisation linked to the sugar industry. Mr Nishikawa maintained he had done nothing illegal but said he was resigning to avoid disruption.
The resignation matters because Mr Nishikawa is a longstanding member of the LDP’s “agricultural tribe”. He acted as a firewall for Mr Abe against internal party critics on trade deals and farm reform.
Negotiators are near a deal on the huge TPP agreement, and agricultural reform is one of Mr Abe’s top priorities this year, so the loss of Mr Nishikawa is a blow to the prime minister’s agenda.
According to reports in Japanese media, the LDP chapter in Mr Nishikawa’s constituency received the Y1m donation in July 2013 from a building management company run by the Japan Sugar Refiners’ Association. The donation came shortly before Japan entered talks on the 12-nation TPP deal.
The TPP is controversial in Japan because big tariff reductions in agriculture will expose its heavily subsidised farmers to competition from Australia, Canada and the US.
Mr Abe regards the TPP as a central part of his structural reforms, aimed at boosting Japan’s growth rate, and curing its long-term economic stagnation. He also wants to reform Japan’s powerful system of agricultural co-operatives
The changes have a political dimension because agriculture has long been a bastion of LDP support, but an obstacle to reform. That means Mr Abe has to overcome opposition from a powerful constituency in his own party.
Mr Nishikawa was the third resignation in six months from Mr Abe’s government after two high profile female ministers, Yuko Obuchi and Midori Matsushima, were forced to quit over political funding scandals last autumn.
Mr Abe will nominate Yoshimasa Hayashi, who has held the agriculture job before, as the new farm minister.
