On Thursday, Japan and South Korea dropped an almost four-year-old trade battle over high-tech products, signaling their desire to repair a troubled relationship and cooperate against growing security threats.
On Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited Japan for the first time in 12 years to find common ground after North Korean missile tests.
South Korea’s trade ministry said Tokyo would lift restrictions on smartphone display and chip materials exports to Seoul in exchange for Seoul dropping a WTO case against Tokyo.
In 2019, Tokyo tightened restrictions amid a decades-old dispute with Seoul. Thursday’s declaration suggests Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida want to work together on supply chains and fight regional conflict. They hope to erase enmity from Japan’s 1910-1945 subjugation of the Korean peninsula.
The North fired a long-range ballistic missile that fell into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan hours before Yoon’s arrival, emphasizing regional security and North Korea’s danger.
According to NHK, Yoon intends to “invigorate” security cooperation, and the two leaders are preparing to resume a bilateral security conversation interrupted in 2018.
According to the Yomiuri newspaper, Japanese government sources want Tokyo and Seoul to resume “shuttle diplomacy” with regular leader visits.
“Japan and South Korea ties are looking brighter, but it’s still a step-by-step process,” said an unnamed Japanese government official.
Yoon confronts domestic skepticism. In a Gallup Korea poll published Friday, 64% said there was no reason to rush to mend ties with Japan if its attitude did not change, and 85% said the present Japanese administration was not sorry for its colonial history.
Economic links are solid despite the pressure. In 2021, the IMF said they were each other’s fourth-largest export markets. Data revealed $52 billion in Japanese exports to South Korea and $30 billion in South Korean exports.
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