Japan's divisive TPP move seems mission impossible

During this week's meeting of the chief negotiators for the 11 countries remaining in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which was held in Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday and Wednesday, it became clear that Japan is keen to take over the helm relinquished by the United States, and it is pushing hard for the deal to be executed on time.

Tokyo's enthusiasm for the much weakened, if not dying, multilateral pact, is clearly politically motivated.

From the very beginning, the US-initiated pact, which was part of the previous administration's pivot to the Asia-Pacific, has borne the hallmarks of political calculation, as China, the world's second-largest economy, was deliberately excluded from what was claimed to be a pure economic arrangement.