South Korea yesterday formally restored Japan to its list of preferential trading partners, three years after the neighbors downgraded each other’s trade status amid a diplomatic row fueled by historical grievances.
In announcing the move through a government gazette, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said that Seoul is further restricting technology and industrial exports to Russia and Belarus to support a US-led pressure campaign against Moscow.
After years of friction, Seoul and Tokyo are working to repair relations as they tighten their security cooperation with Washington to counter the threat posed by North Korea. Pyongyang has used the distractions caused by the war to accelerate testing of nuclear-capable missiles.
Photo: AP
South Korean officials said that Tokyo is likely to respond by restoring Seoul as a favored trading partner, but expect that step to take more time based on the procedures to revise Japan’s export regulations.
In September 2019, South Korea dropped Japan from its “white list” of countries receiving fast-track approvals in trade, reacting to a similar move by Tokyo.
Japan had also tightened export controls on key chemicals South Korean companies use to make semiconductors and displays, prompting South Korea to file a complaint with the WTO.
Seoul accused Tokyo of weaponizing trade to retaliate against South Korean court rulings that ordered Japanese companies to offer reparations to South Koreans forced into slave labor before the end of World War II, when Japan had colonized the Korean Peninsula. The 2018 rulings irked Japan, which insists all compensation issues were settled by a 1965 treaty that normalized relations.
Relations between the US allies began to thaw last month when South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May last year, announced plans to use South Korean funds to compensate the forced laborers without requiring Japanese contributions.
Yoon traveled to Tokyo to meet with Japanese Prime Minster Fumio Kishida, and they vowed to rebuild security and economic ties.
Following that summit, South Korea withdrew its complaint at the WTO against Japan, as Tokyo simultaneously confirmed its removal of export controls over a set of chemicals considered vital to South Korea’s technology industry. The Japanese restrictions had covered fluorinated polyimides, which are used in organic light-emitting diode screens for televisions and smartphones, and photoresist and hydrogen fluoride, used for making semiconductors.
In announcing its new regulations over exports of strategic materials, the South Korean trade ministry also said the country is placing hundreds more industrial products and components under its export restrictions against Russia and Belarus beginning this week.
Seoul’s controls have covered 57 items, including those related to electronics and shipbuilding, with authorities banning their shipments to Russia and Belarus unless the companies obtain special approvals.
The list as of Friday is to cover 798 items, including exports related to construction, machinery, steelmaking, automobiles, semiconductors and advanced computing.
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