The Doing of a Toxic Country Rivalry: The Japan and South Korea Trade War
/There are many country rivalries in the world. These rivalries can just be silly banter or full-blown hatred no matter the reason for their existence. Correctly, Japan and South Korea's relationship falls on the latter because of unresolved issues such as Japan's colonization of Korea starting in 1910 and an island dispute for the Liancourt Rocks called Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan. As a result of their open aggression towards each other, it came to no surprise when the two East Asian countries proceeded to find another way to go to war with each other. A trade war at that.
former south korean Prime minister, Moon Jae-In (left) shakes hands with former japanese prime minister, shinzo abe at the g20 osaka summit of 2019
Enter the first of July in 2019, a day where Canadians were celebrating with fireworks for the anniversary of their country's independence, but for Japan and South Korea, it was marked by a new form of their expected exchange of blows. This was the Japan-South Korea trade dispute, also termed as the Japan-South Korea economic war, an economic dispute between the two countries that started as a result of Japan restricting exports to South Korea of three chemicals - fluorinated polyamides, photoresists, and hydrogen fluoride - important to the manufacturing of semiconductors. Japan's reasoning for this was that they claimed South Korea was sending sensitive information to North Korea, yet they couldn't give any evidence of it. Though, even so, going back months prior can reveal a much clearer reason for Japan's actions.
Basically, from November of 2018 to June of 2019, a series of South Korean ruling courts went on a spree begging Japan to compensate the victims of their aggression in the past. This issue is a major driving force for the disdain the neighbours have for each other. South Korea believes Japan tries to erase its past while Japan believes they've done enough already, and South Korea is just wanting to bring up the issue for the sake of it.
Anyways, after South Korea tried to explain that Japan was stating false information, Japan hit them again with another restriction, which was removing them from a list of countries they could trade with. In retaliation, South Korea would return the move and go on to boycott Japanese products. To add, there were even those who destroyed their vehicles because they were of Japanese origin. Fundamentally, this whole thing became known as the "No Japan" boycott campaign.
a crowd in south korea taking part in the “No japan” protests holding up signs associated with the movement
What made things worse was an ad from Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing brand that is very popular in South Korea, that came out during the time of their rampage, which depicted a little girl asking an old woman how she dressed when she was her age, in which the old woman replied by saying she can't remember that far back. Essentially, South Koreans saw this as Japan, yet again, refusing to acknowledge the unfortunate past.
a japanese police officer stands next to a pole for the national flag of south korea and japan respectfully
As the event went on, the world feared that it would harm the already decreasing global economy. What worsened their thoughts was that it coincided with another trade war between the United States and China that started a year before but continued into the next. Though it didn’t manage to create a huge spill around the world, it did cause a significant deterioration in the already sour relationship between the two neighbours.
Ultimately, this trade dispute went on for almost four years, only ending on March 23rd, 2023, after it cooled down and the two nations added each other back on their whitelist. Because of this, South Koreans stopped their boycott and continued their purchase of Japanese goods after a lengthy pause. Nonetheless, this war exposed the toxic relationship Japan and South Korea have with each other and again, worsened the ties between the two countries. It's a rather unfortunate consequence of the past the two find they can't resolve due to their differences regarding it.
Hey there,
My name is Tia Nsoedo and I am a 19-year-old student in the Professional Writing program, but after that, I plan on going straight into the Scriptwriting one.
I am very passionate about drawing, creating characters, and writing, while interested in countries, history, music, animated tv shows, meanings/origins of first and given names, and video games.
In the future, I hope to become a scriptwriter, where I get to script my own animated tv show… Hopefully.
