The World On arirang

The South Korea-Japan dispute has further escalated after the government officials of the two sides could not find a resolution during their first meeting since Tokyo placed export curbs on key tech components to Seoul on July 4th. Seoul has called for Tokyo to withdraw its export curbs, while Tokyo claimed it has never heard such demand from its counterpart on the matter. Meanwhile, a series of twist and turns occurred after Japan who alleged South Korea for potentially violating North Korea sanctions, turned out to have been leaking North Korea-sanctioned strategic materials that could be used for military purpose to North Korea.

The bilateral spat is expected to peak on July 18th, the deadline for South Korea to respond to Japan’s proposal on setting up a panel of third-country arbitrators to address the forced labor dispute. The conflict could get even worse with Japan slated to put additional economic retaliatory measures on South Korea. Meanwhile, the ongoing spat between the two sides would be discussed at the upcoming WTO’s General Council slated to take place on July 23rd. We will have an in-depth discussion with an expert on how the dispute would play out once it takes center stage at the global meeting.