ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Japan's role in the development of trade and investment ties in the Asia-Pacific region, review the changes now taking place in Japan's relationship with these countries, and speculate on future developments. Japan's relationship with the world and especially with the Asia-Pacific region is changing rapidly. The chapter concludes that cooperation in the region should not, therefore, take the form of any formal regional trade preference arrangement. The concept of a bilateral free-trade zone with Japan or other Asian countries has very little support in Washington. An aggressive tone has emerged in some articles, in which the Japanese portray the United States as being unfair to the rest of Asia, in explicit or implicit comparison to a more benevolent Japan. Some Japanese have gone so far to see evolving regionalism in the Western Pacific proceeding to the same extent as European regionalism, driven by both the high yen and the continuing economic development of other countries in Asia.
