Japan is an appropriate site for this weekend's meeting of the top four trading powers. Officials from the European Union, Japan, the United States and Canada will press Asian nations to table proposals for dismantling barriers to entry in their telecommunications markets before an April 30 deadline set by the World Trade Organisation.
In telecommunications deregulation, as in few other sectors, Japan has led rather than followed. This is an area where, despite their pressure on others, neither the US nor the European Union (with some honourable exceptions among member states) has much to boast about. But it is in the rest of Asia that dominant government monopolies remain the rule.