South Korean merchants staged a rally calling for the boycotting of Japanese products on Monday (July 15) amid a Japan-South Korearow after Tokyo curbed the export of high-tech material to Seoul.
About 30 protesters from small and medium-sized enterprises, mostly supermarket owners, gathered near the Japanese Embassy, cutting up Japan-branded clothes and pouring Japanese beer into dustbins. Protest leader, Kim Sung-Min said that Japan was insulting at last week's talks and merchants like them will keep boycotting Japanese products.
Japan had tightened restrictions on the export of three materials used in high-tech equipment, citing what it has called "inadequate management" of sensitive items exported to South Korea, as well as a lack of consultations about export controls.
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| South Korean small and medium-sized business owners throw papers showing logos of major Japanese brands into a trash can during a rally calling for a boycott of Japanese products in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 15, 2019. South Korea and Japan last Friday, July 12, failed to immediately resolve their dispute over Japanese export restrictions that could hurt South Korean technology companies, as Seoul called for an investigation by the United Nations or another international body. The signs read: "Our supermarket does not sell Japanese products." AP |
South Korea's trade ministry said on Sunday (July 14) it plans to raise the "unfairness" of Japan's export curbs at the World Trade Organization's general council meeting on July 23 to 24.
The dispute also appears to be rooted in a decades-old wartime disagreement. Tokyo is frustrated over what it sees as Seoul's failure to act in response to a South Korean court ruling ordering a Japanese company to compensate former forced laborers from the Second World War. (Reuters)
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