Japan-South Korea Dispute Deeper Than Export Controls, May Not Have Solution, Expert Says

There may not be a solution to the Japan-South Korean trade dispute, said James Schoff, a senior fellow for The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Schoff suggested that the rift between the two sides is not solely about export controls but is instead the result of a culmination of many factors -- including a decline in trust -- and may not be salvable.

“There’s a lot of vagueness about what exactly the reasons were” for Japan’s export restrictions against South Korea, Schoff said, speaking during an Aug. 7 Heritage Foundation panel discussion. Japan initially announced the restrictions on July 1, followed by a decision to remove South Korea from its list of trusted trading partners (see 1908020023).

Schoff said Japan’s July 1 announcement -- in which Japan said its “relationship of trust” with South Korea had been “undermined” -- was unclear. “Was it Korean companies who were not up to snuff? Or was it the Korean government that was not satisfying certain conditions? Or was it Japanese companies that were not sufficiently dealing with this?” Schoff said. “I don’t think it was about export controls, per se.”

Vagueness, combined with both sides’ reluctance to meet and negotiate, suggests the issue is deeper than policy and regulations, Schoff said. “I don't think that’s what is really at the heart of this,” he said. “I'm not optimistic that there's a practical solution to this export control issue or to this particular trade dispute.”

While the export control issues may have played a role, Schoff said, it was the decline in trust that pushed Japan to remove South Korea from its so-called “whitelist” of trading partners. Yuki Tatsumi, director of the Japan program and co-director of the East Asia program at The Stimson Center, said during the panel that the two countries have not met to discuss export controls for the last three years.

“That’s why there’s no specific effort to fix this particular little problem. This is a deeper, fundamental problem where I think the Japan side fairly clearly has decided they're willing to accept a significantly diminished strategic and economic relationship with South Korea,” Schoff said. “And, in effect, South Korea has made a similar decision.”