Energy Also Fuels Japan’s FTA Drive

Japan is accelerating its drive toward free-trade agreements (FTAs) with trading partners. To be sure, this Japanese move is being largely fueled by an intensifying rivalry with China over leadership in regional economic integration. But it is also being prompted by growing energy security concerns amid increasingly tough global competition for oil, gas and other resources.

Beneath the recently accelerated Japanese FTA strategy lies an intensifying rivalry with China over energy resources, as well as over political and economic influence in Asia. Japan has increasingly been competing over scarce energy resources with China. The two energy-hungry Asian powers have been locked in the simmering dispute over gas reserves in the East China Sea. Furthermore, they have each lobbied hard for alternative routes for a pipeline from eastern Siberia’s oilfields to Pacific Rim nations.
Ohmy News