South Korea-Japan Trade Row: No Progress Made in ASEAN Meeting

According to South Korean foreign minister, the nation could review its bilateral security cooperation with Japan as trade tensions between the two countries continue to escalate. Japan is considering removing South Korea from its trade whitelist, which gives its trading partners minimum trade restrictions.

Ever since Japan curbed exports of key raw materials used by South Korean tech companies to manufacture memory chips and smartphone displays, the diplomatic and trade ties between both countries have been under strain.

Foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan held meetings at the sidelines of the ASEAN conference in Bangkok on Thursday. This meeting has been the highest level talks ever since Japan’s curbs came into effect about a month ago.

However, it looks like these talks were not as fruitful as expected, as the South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha stated that Japan’s stance remained mostly unchanged even after the meeting. Japan, on its part, continues to maintain that these trade restrictions have been put in place over security concerns.