{"id":222087,"date":"2019-07-08T21:38:53","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T01:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=222087"},"modified":"2019-07-08T21:38:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T01:38:53","slug":"skoreas-moon-calls-for-diplomatic-solution-to-trade-spat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/07\/08\/skoreas-moon-calls-for-diplomatic-solution-to-trade-spat\/","title":{"rendered":"SKorea’s Moon calls for diplomatic solution to trade spat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
In a meeting with senior aides, President Moon Jae-in called for\u00a0Japan\u00a0to withdraw what he described as a politically motivated measure and for \u201csincere\u201d bilateral discussions on the issue. (File Photo<\/a>: @TheBlueHouseENG\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SEOUL,\u00a0Korea, Republic Of \u2014\u00a0South\u00a0Korea’s president said Monday the country is committed to finding a diplomatic solution to a bitter dispute over tightened Japanese control of exports of high-tech materials used by\u00a0South\u00a0Korean companies to produce semiconductors and displays.<\/p>\n

In a meeting with senior aides, President Moon Jae-in called for\u00a0Japan\u00a0to withdraw what he described as a politically motivated measure and for \u201csincere\u201d bilateral discussions on the issue. He said\u00a0SouthKorea\u00a0would be left no choice but to take countermeasures if the Japanese trade controls damage\u00a0South\u00a0Korean companies.<\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0Japan\u00a0removed\u00a0South\u00a0Korea\u00a0from a list of nations with which it minimally restricts trade and ordered a more stringent approval process for shipments of photoresist and other key chemicals to\u00a0South\u00a0Korea.\u00a0The move came amid deteriorating relations between the countries over issues related to\u00a0Japan’s brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

South\u00a0Korea’s Trade Ministry has said Seoul plans to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the \u201cunjust\u201d Japanese action. The\u00a0South\u00a0Korean government sees the Japanese move as retaliation for recent\u00a0South\u00a0Korean court rulings ordering Japanese corporations to compensate\u00a0South\u00a0Korean plaintiffs for forced labour during World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recent trade curbs imposed by\u00a0Japan\u00a0have raised concern over disruption in production for our companies and the threat it poses to global supply chains … there’s global concern over the move to limit mutually beneficial trade between civilian companies for political purposes,\u201d Moon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA vicious cycle created by measures and countermeasures wouldn’t be ideal for both countries. But if\u00a0South\u00a0Korean companies begin experiencing actual damages, our government would have no choice but to take a necessary response,\u201d he said, adding that he hopes things don’t come to that.<\/p>\n

Japan’s export restrictions, which went into effect last Thursday, cover fluorinated polyimides, which are used in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens for TVs and smartphones, and photoresist and hydrogen fluoride, which are used for making semiconductors.<\/p>\n

Japanese officials insist the decision to end preferential treatment for such exports to\u00a0South\u00a0Korea\u00a0resulted from a lack of trust that posed a risk to national security.<\/p>\n

When asked aboutsuspicions in\u00a0Japan\u00a0thatSouth\u00a0Korea\u00a0was allowing chemicals exported from\u00a0Japan\u00a0to flow to North\u00a0Korea, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said without providing details that there had been a case of inappropriate use.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding export controls with\u00a0South\u00a0Korea, it is true we haven’t had sufficient communications or exchanges of opinion with\u00a0South\u00a0Korea\u00a0for at least three years,\u201d Nishimura said.<\/p>\n

An official in\u00a0South\u00a0Korea’s presidential office denied the suspicions during a background briefing, saying that the country was properly implementing international sanctions against North\u00a0Korea\u00a0over its nuclear weapons program and that there was no evidence backing the Japanese claim.<\/p>\n

The Japanese move to control exports triggered an angry response in\u00a0South\u00a0Korea, where many believe\u00a0Japan\u00a0still hasn’t fully acknowledged responsibility for atrocities committed during its colonial occupation of\u00a0Korea\u00a0from 1910 to 1945.<\/p>\n

Thousands of\u00a0South\u00a0Koreans have signed petitions posted by citizens on the presidential office’s website that called for boycotts of Japanese products and travel to\u00a0Japan.\u00a0One petition demanded that\u00a0SouthKorea\u00a0boycott next year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics.<\/p>\n

Retailers have reported modest declines in sales of Japanese beer, while social media and online message boards were filled with posts seeking advice on whether trips to\u00a0Japan\u00a0should be cancelled over worries of unfriendly reception by Japanese.<\/p>\n

Analysts say the Japanese measure won’t have any immediate meaningful impact on\u00a0South\u00a0Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which have sufficient supplies of the materials for now, given the slowdown in demand for semiconductors.<\/p>\n

However, there’s concern that\u00a0Japan\u00a0might expand the restrictions to include other key semiconductor materials such as wafers, or materials and components used in other products, including rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

In January-May, 94% of\u00a0South\u00a0Korea’s imports of fluorinated polyimide and 92% of its imports of photoresist were from\u00a0Japan, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service, which cited trade data from\u00a0South\u00a0Korea.<\/p>\n

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accounted for 73% of the global DRAM market and 40% of the global NAND market by revenue in the first quarter of 2019, according to market researcher DRAMeXchange.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEOUL,\u00a0Korea, Republic Of \u2014\u00a0South\u00a0Korea’s president said Monday the country is committed to finding a diplomatic solution to a bitter dispute …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":181013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-kim-tong-hyung","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222092,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222087\/revisions\/222092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}