Ahead of the trilateral summit in China, Japan softened toward S. Korea. (Image via www.orfonline.org)

Ahead of the trilateral summit, Japan eases export curb on S. Korea

On Friday, Japan’s Ministry of Trade stated that they will ease the export curb on one of three essential chemical compounds used for semiconductor production to South Korea (S. Korea). Japan’s action came days before the annual trilateral summit held in China.

The Trade Ministry said that it had granted the bulk permits to up to three years for one company to export the photoresist component to S. Korea. The step was seen as a good record between the bilateral companies.

However, when being asked about the correlation between the step and the trilateral summit, the Trade Ministry said that it has nothing to do with the trilateral summit.

The S. Korean Presidential Office revealed on Friday that on Christmas Eve, the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, will meet with President of S. Korea, Moon Jae-in, in Chengdu, Southwestern China. The meeting will be their first for 15 months. The meeting will be held on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting with the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang.

The summit between Abe and Moon is expected to shed a light on the sickening bilateral relations between Japan and S. Korea seeing its lowest point in decades.

In October 2018, the Supreme Court of S. Korea ordered the Japanese companies to compensate for the wartime labor in S. Korea during the Japanese invasion over the Korean Peninsula in the WWII era. Japan said that it had been settled in the 1965 treaty.

Offended by the accusations, Tokyo then put an export curb on three main chemical components used to make semiconductors on S. Korea. This led to the deletion of each other’s names on each other’s “whitelists”. Furthermore, S. Korea threatened that if the export curb persisted, it would not extend the military information-sharing agreement, JSOMIA.

Under the pressure from their ally, the United States (U.S), both countries declared a temporary truce by temporarily extending the JSOMIA under certain circumstances. JSOMIA is said to be trilateral cooperation between Tokyo, Washington, and Seoul to tackle threats from North Korea (N. Korea) and China.

Source: https://bit.ly/2SabWSF