Jung Sung Chun said the Korean government is considering whether or not to join the TPP and when. Three important issues to consider are: 1) China is an important country from a political perspective, and maybe the Chinese will think that Korea joining TPP will be bad for them. 2) Japan is the second factor. Ten years ago, Japan and Korea started to negotiate a FTA, which failed because of issues related to the manufacturing sector for Korea and the agricultural sector for Japan. The agricultural sector issue is not too important anymore, but Korean SMEs resist TPP negotiations because of Japan's strong manufacturing. 3) The agricultural factor is also an obstacle. Many people think that Japan needs to reform its agricultural sector. Korea thinks that Japan will eventually give up protecting five agricultural items. If so, Korea will lose a partner in agricultural protectionism.

Bhanuphong Nidhiprabha pointed out the...

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