US official trade negotiators were back in Tokyo last week for talks with their Japanese counterparts in which they hoped to succeed – where legions of their predecessors have failed in recent decades – in “opening up” key sectors of the Japanese market such as motor vehicles and insurance products.

This time, however, the talks did not come as a high profile face-off between the two sides, as has usually been the case in the past, but instead were held under the rather anonymous mantle of “parallel bilateral negotiations” forming part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) process.

Acting Deputy US Trade Representative Wendy Cutler, who led the US delegation, claimed at the close of the three days of talks that negotiations had “got off to a good start”, although Japan’s ambassador for economic diplomacy Takeo Mori was more non-committal.

The low-profile nature of the talks was seen by some analysts as being a further example of the “secrecy” surrounding the TPP process in which a dozen Asia-Pacific nations – including the US, Japan and Singapore – are seeking to reach a “high standard” trade and economic liberalisation pact.