▲ The trade war between Korea and Japan continues.

The dispute between the two countries began with a Supreme Court ruling in South Korea made in October 2018. The decision during the Japanese occupation of the Korean victims of conscription to the Japanese war criminals, companies must be paid for. The Republic of Korea was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. In 1965, South Korea and Japan sign a basic treaty. With the treaty, South Korea will receive about $300 million and will liquidate all of its past.

However, victims of forced labor filed a lawsuit against Japan's war criminals, demanding compensation. Korean victims lost lawsuits in Japan in 1997 and also in South Korea in 2005 and 2012. However, the Supreme Court, which was challenged by them, overturned previous precedents in 2018 and lifted the hands of Korean conscripted victims. The South Korean government then rejected Japan's objection and conducted the seizure of Japanese companies in Korea in accordance with the Supreme Court's ruling. Japan did not like it, and as a retaliatory measure, it imposed trade restrictions over Korea.

On July 1, 2019, Japan announced export restrictions on five types of semiconductor materials. Since then, a boycott against Japan has taken place in South Korea, deepening the two countries' conflict. Then, Japan excluded South Korea from the whitelist on Aug. 7. Whitelist refers to a country that exempts applications for permission when exporting strategic goods. In response, South Korea also excluded Japan from its whitelist on Aug. 12. To resolve the intensifying trade war, the two countries hold a foreign ministers' meeting on Aug. 21 but had little results. Finally, on August 24, the situation is getting worse and worse, with South Korea ending even the Military Information Protection Agreement, GSOMIA. The United States is now also worrying about the situation between the two countries.

▲ Foreign ministers` meeting had little results.

▲ As GSOMIA ended, the trade war connected to security problem.

If the trade war continues, both countries will have huge damages in the economy. However, the feelings of the people of both countries are getting stronger, and the settlement of the situation does not seem easy yet.

August 27th, 2019

by Seungwon Shin