Japan should start negotiations for an FTA with the EU

Tokyo

EUROPEAN creditors involved in the confrontation with Greece have expended a lot of high-powered diplomacy on Japan in the last few months. My assumption is that a great deal of this is focused on how Japan would react to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the case of a Greek default.

People tend to forget that Japan is the No 2 contributor to the IMF after the US. So a lot of Japanese money is at stake if - as seems increasingly likely - Greece fails to repay its official loans. In contrast with China,…