To extend GSOMIA, S. Korea demands Japan to lift off the export curb. (Image via www.orfonline.org)

Japanese, S. Korean hotshots meet to alleviate wartime tension

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Politics & Economic
News Flash Japan
Nov 16, 2019
1164
On Friday, several politicians and businesspeople from Japan and South Korea (S. Korea) met to discuss the efforts to release tension choking the bilateral relations of the two countries over wartime dispute.

The head of Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), Hiroaki Nakanishi, one of the business people attending the meeting, said that business might be one of the solutions for Japan and S. Korea. Nakanishi also called for the two countries to maintain a “steady” dialogue for mutual trust and understanding.

Nakanishi’s statement was also supported by his S. Korean counterpart, the Chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, Hu Chang-soo. Hu hoped that Japan and S. Korea will soon resolve the antagonisms between them since the WWII era.

Meanwhile, the Japanese and S. Korean politicians met altogether to discuss the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a military-intelligence sharing pact that reflects the three-way military corporation between Japan, S. Korea, and the United States (U.S) to tackle North Korea’s (N. Korea) nuclear activity and China’s supremacy.

Due to the conflict that dropped the bilateral relations between Japan and S. Korea to their lowest levels in decades, S. Korea threatened to end GSOMIA. Meanwhile, the GSOMIA will be expired at the end of November.

The meeting lasted for two hours, did not reap any productive result as S. Korean politicians remained adamant to scrap off the GSOMIA. S. Korea’s demand remains the same: if Japan wants GSOMIA to keep running, they must lift off the trade curbs on important chemical components. However, no further details were revealed.

The President of the U.S, Donald Trump, was angered by the possibility for the GSOMIA to end and urged both countries to quickly mend their bilateral relations.

In 2018, the Supreme Court of S. Korea ordered the Japanese companies to compensate for wartime labor during Japan’s invasion over the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. S. Korea also accused Japan of being ignorant of the past sufferings of the S. Korean.

Japan, offended, said that the dispute had been settled in the 1965 treaty where Japan gave US$800 million to S. Korea as the token of “economic cooperation”. The dispute led to the deletion of each other’s names from each other’s “whitelist”.

Japan also imposed chemical export restrictions on S. Korea, crippling S. Korean electronics manufacturers to produce display panels and semiconductors.

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

Politics , Bilateral , Trilateral , Asia , Japan , S.Korea , U.S , GSOMIA , Military