When it comes to trade policy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces a choice between the fears of an aging farm lobby and the hopes of suburban families lined up at a 20-meter-long meat counter in a Chiba mall showcasing Australian beef.
When Aeon Co. set out to open a flagship shopping mall just outside Tokyo, it wanted the scale to dazzle urban shoppers. The 3-month-old Makuhari New City mall is almost four times larger than the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome.
At the mall's supermarket, the daily specials include beef shipped directly from Aeon's own feed lot in the Australian state of Tasmania — an arrangement that reduces prices and skirts a politically strong agricultural cooperative system that many see as an outdated relic of Japan's postwar revival.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.