ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the political options that Japan, as a leading Asia-Pacific nation, ought to explore in regard to its foreign relations in a new international environment. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect in January 1994, embracing two countries from the industrialized North-the United States and Canada-and one from the developing South-Mexico-all within the Western Hemisphere. NAFTA can be viewed as the expression of a new inter-American regional doctrine adopted by the United States with the aim of revitalizing the US The US government has clearly revealed its intention to extend the free trade agreement to other Latin American countries in the near future. The best choice for Japan, at least until Japanese people reach a new consensus on international policy, is to make full use of the comparatively strong Japanese foreign policy resources-economic, financial, and technological-in bilateral and multilateral forums and not through a regional framework, especially in Latin America.
