Japan needs strategy for facing China: Tanaka

Linda Sieg, Reuters, Tokyo

Japan must develop a strategy to avoid being left behind by China and should be taking a harder line toward Beijing in a row over surging farm imports, Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka said on Wednesday.

"China is developing rapidly in its coastal areas, it has joined the WTO (World Trade Organization) and will host the Olympics," Tanaka told Reuters in an interview.

"It is rapidly joining the capitalist economy," she added.

"Japan is being left out."

Her comments came as negotiators from the two nations grappled in talks over surging imports of Chinese farm products.

"If we consider China's entry into the WTO, for Japan to keep trying to settle the issue through talks is, I think, a mistake," the outspoken Tanaka said.

She added that Chinese negotiators were tough and Tokyo was unlikely to win the ambiguous deal it was seeking to settle the prickly dispute.

"Japan should say clearly that it will impose safeguards (import curbs)," she said.

Vice ministers from the two countries met in Tokyo in an effort to resolve the festering trade row ahead of a Friday deadline, when Japan must present evidence to the WTO that would allow it to upgrade to full sanctions against China.

The half-day talks ended without a deal, but Tokyo said the two sides had found some common ground and agreed to talk again.

Japanese officials have said Tokyo could slap long-term curbs on imports of Chinese leeks, shiitake mushrooms and rushes used for traditional tatami mats before the year-end if the deadline passes without a deal.

Tanaka said, however, that she would do all she could to prevent the trade spat from damaging overall Sino-Japanese ties.

"I will make every effort in diplomatic and other ways," she said. "This is not the sum-total of Japan-China relations."

The farm product dispute is the flip side of ever-closer economic ties seen by many Japanese businesses as vital to bolstering their competitive edge.

Many of the Chinese exports were grown to meet demand of Japanese importers seeking cheaper goods.

But it also comes in tandem with growing Japanese concerns about China's rise as a potential Asian superpower.

"America, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members are looking only towards China," Tanaka said.

"We must at all costs avoid Japan being left all alone economically, even more than in terms of its political clout."