Taking Aim at the TPP

WikiLeaks has made a new dump of secret documents:

TOKYO — The WikiLeaks website published documents Friday that it says show the U.S. government spied on Japanese officials and companies.

The documents include what appear to be five U.S. National Security Agency reports, four of which are marked top-secret, that provide intelligence on Japanese positions on international trade and climate change. They date from 2007 to 2009.

A notation on one of the top-secret reports on climate change before the 2008 G-8 summit is marked for sharing with Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, according to WikiLeaks. It’s not clear if it was actually shared.

The organization also posted what it says is an NSA list of 35 Japanese targets for telephone intercepts including the Japanese Cabinet office, Bank of Japan officials, Finance and Trade Ministry numbers, the natural gas division at Mitsubishi, and the petroleum division at Mitsui.

It appears to me that the organization’s target in these leaks is Japanese public opinion with an eye to sabotaging the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

The TPP negotiations are coming down to the short strokes and, as is usual in negotiations of this sort, the issues left until last are frequently the thorniest. As I’ve mentioned before we already have free trade agreements with most of the substantial economies in the negotiations—except Japan.

I’ll be interested in seeing how these leaks play in Japan. Things are increasingly tense in Japan these days. The economy has become wobbly again and the tensions between Japan and China are rising.

I’d still like to know what we will actually get from Japan in the TPP agreements. I’m not opposed to them but I am skeptical. A majority of Americans support the TPP, at least in principle, while most Japanese share my skepticism. I doubt that the new leaks will help.

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    It appears to me that the organization’s target in these leaks is Japanese public opinion with an eye to sabotaging the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

    How effective would that be? US public opinion only occasionally matters to US pols and their owners. Is there any reason to think Japanese public opinion matters to the people running Japan more than US public opinion matters to the Boehners & Obamas of America?

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