London — Theresa May got a taste of Japanese restraint and formality during a tea ceremony with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. What might be lost in translation is how unimpressed a key UK trade partner is with how the premier is conducting Brexit. Her lofty goal of convincing the world’s third-biggest economy to use its trade deal with the European Union as a basis for a future agreement with Britain may not be rejected outright — but observers reading the tea leaves see unmistakable signs of discomfort with how Britain is going about the divorce. "I don’t see it as a simple matter, taking one text and translating it into a bilateral agreement," Britain’s former ambassador to Japan, David Warren, told Bloomberg Radio. "I think it would be a little more complicated than that." He said May’s hosts had grave doubts about Brexit: "The Japanese simply don’t understand why we’re doing this. They’re far too polite to say so publicly." Tomohiko Taniguchi, a special adviser to Abe, picked his w...
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