The Governments of Japan and China have negotiated with each other whether they should adopt in their FTAs a data free flow rule and other data flow rules which were introduced in the TPP agreement. While Japanese industry demands adopting the rules in Japan and in other countries, the Chinese Government argues that data flow should be subject to the precondition of security. According to a game theory model, which was constructed by the author, Japan and China are expected to agree on limited rules on data flow for their FTA. They actually agreed on limited data flow rules in the RCEP agreement in 2020. The Chinese government announced in September, 2021 that they requested to join the CPTPP agreement. According to the model, we cannot expect China to agree to adopt the current TPP data flow rules soon. To promote TPP data flow rules in the world from a long-term perspective, Japan should make data flow rules more economically beneficial for any country by widening data flowing areas, for example, through increasing member countries/economies of the TPP agreement.

Twenty years have passed since Japan took the lead in promoting IT skill standardization in Asia and facilitating the international mobility of IT Engineers. Since the introduction of the Mutual Recognition System and the Asia IT Professional Examination, the recognition of this system for foreign IT engineers has increased. But the recognition among Japanese Companies still remains low.

Although the number of foreign IT engineers in Japan has been increasing, the reason behind low recognition and utilization of these system is that Japanese companies have continued with the Japanese Employment system. In this traditional system, companies and recruitment personnel have placed importance on whether or not a person can adapt to Japanese society and business practices.

In this recruitment process, Japanese language skill is the most important point for accepting as a member of “Our” company, but on the other hand, professional skills, capability and qualifications of IT engineers are not considered important.