Asian trade liberalisation on parallel tracks that lead nowhere

Tokyo

BENEATH the patchwork quilt of opposing free trade agreements in Asia, two major powers are "in bed together (geographically) but dreaming different dreams", while a third has jumped out of the bed to pursue his own "affairs". The situation has the makings of a nightmare more than a dream.

Just how messy such situations can become was clear this week when two of the partners, Japan and China, agreed to finalise a mutual free trade pact (the RCEP), while one of them, Japan, strove to keep an old affair (the TPP) going and a third, the US, continued pushing for an affair with Japan.

The sheer political cynicism underlying these manoeuvres threatens to give free trade an even worse name than it has acquired already at the hands of populist politicians (not leas…