The Japan Times - Japón

India’s exit from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) regional trade talks appeared to leave China and Japan at odds over whether to press ahead with the remaining members — or to try to find a workaround that includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Japan and South Korea have begun exploring ways to resolve their long-running fight over compensation for wartime labor, with one option being the creation of a fund to provide money for economic cooperation, according to sources familiar with the bilateral relationship.

Japan logged a goods trade deficit for the third consecutive month in September, weighed down by weak exports to China, South Korea and other Asian countries, government data showed Monday.

The Asian Development Bank has downgraded its growth forecasts for the region, saying escalating trade tensions are sapping economies of some of their potential.

Japan has agreed to a consultation with South Korea over Tokyo’s enhanced export control measures, trade minister Isshu Sugawara said Friday, effectively locking both countries into the World Trade Organization’s painstaking dispute settlement process — an undertaking that could potentially take years.

Japan and the United States are working toward a joint leaders’ statement that would include a U.S. promise not to hike tariffs or introduce quotas on Japanese cars, the daily Tokyo Shimbun reported Monday.

Government officials on Wednesday told diplomats they were still considering options for handling contaminated water at the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant amid worries the water may be dumped into the ocean.

In a stunning move that could further upend already fraying ties between Japan and South Korea, Seoul on Thursday announced that it would scrap a key intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo, with the South’s presidential Blue House saying in a statement that it did not meet Seoul’s “national interests” to maintain the deal amid the intensifying spat between the two neighbors.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has urged Japan to consider taking part in a coalition to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.