If that was a question to me, it would be unusual to Japan to see the involvement of provinces, but I don't expect they would necessarily object. In the EU context obviously, to EU negotiators, with nation states behind them, provinces probably made a lot of sense to them, whereas in Japan these decisions about trade negotiations and the initiative are highly centralized at the nation state level. So this would come as a surprise to them, I suspect, although they're surely watching the EU-Canada negotiations. But I also don't think it's necessarily a stumbling stone they would object to. It would be something to work out.
