The Japanese Perspective
On November 20, 2012, at the Japan-China-ROK Economic and Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,1 Ministers Edano Yukio, Chen Deming, and Bark Tae Ho, announced that they were launching negotiations to forge an FTA among their three countries. The announcement and the negotiations were the next logical step in a series of deepening and more institutionalized economic ties among the three countries that had been advancing for at least two decades.