Economic retaliation

Japan's move aggravates ties with Korea further

The already-soured relationship between Seoul and Tokyo is feared to aggravate further as Japan is taking what appears to be economic retaliation against South Korea. It is appalling to see the two countries' diplomatic row heading for a debacle that could destroy their economic partnership.

On Monday, the Japanese government announced a plan to strengthen regulations on the export of three types of materials and chemicals to Korea starting Thursday. The plan could deal a crippling blow to Korean chip and display makers because they are heavily dependent on those items to manufacture semiconductors and smartphones.

One of the chemicals is fluorine polyimide needed to manufacture flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. The others are resist and etching gas used to produce semiconductors. If the restrictive measure is implemented, Korean IT giants such as Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and LG Display may find it difficult to secure those materials and chemicals, 70 percent to 90 percent of which come from Japan.

Some experts say the Japanese action is tantamount to an export ban. The export restriction comes after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hosted the G20 summit in Osaka last week. He shook hands with South Korean President Moon Jaein for only eight seconds and refused overtures for a bilateral summit. The retaliatory measure is not in line with his pitch for free trade during the gathering.

Japan's economic retaliation is certainly in response to a ruling by South Korea's Supreme Court last October that ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to compensate four Koreans mobilized into forced labor during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the peninsula. Since then, the nationalist Abe government has strongly protested the ruling, saying that all individual compensation claims to colonial-era damages were settled under the 1965 basic treaty that normalized diplomatic relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

Japan has already threatened to retaliate against Korea if the court allows the forced labor victims to seize the Japanese firm's assets to get the compensation. It is regrettable that Abe has started to put the threat into action ahead of a parliamentary election set for late July. He might be using the measure to win the poll, without making any effort to mend ties with Seoul.

Now the problem is that the two countries run the risk of being thrown into a tit-for-tat fight as Seoul is also threatening to take similar measures against Tokyo. No one can rule out the possibility of a trade war between the two sides.

We urge both Korea and Japan to refrain from resorting to retaliation. They should try to find a negotiated solution. For this, they need to have talks to discuss how to settle historical issues including forced labor and wartime sex slavery. Moon and Abe had better hold a summit sooner than later to leave the disgraced past behind and move toward a better future.