ed Japan boycott

The dispute between Seoul and Tokyo over the easternmost islets of Dokdo took a twist Monday after local merchants declared a boycott of Japanese products.

The Save Local Stores Alliance, supported by civic groups and mom-and-pop store owners, said the boycott campaign, which would target Japanese tobacco, beer, electronic goods and motor vehicles, would begin on the March 1 Independence Movement Day until Japan repents of its past misdeeds and stops its sovereignty claims to Dokdo, which is called Takeshima in Japan.

The association and supporting groups claim to have nearly 6 million members and said they deal with 80 percent of the Japanese products distributed in the country. Given these, the latest boycott might bring a considerable impact to sales of Japanese products here unlike previous small-scale protests usually organized by civic groups.

Last year, these groups flexed their muscles by refusing to accept Samsung and Shinhan credit cards in protest against high transaction fees levied on small business owners and succeeding in making credit card firms lower their fees. They also played a key role in forcing large discount chains to close on specific weekend business days in consideration of small retailers and corner shops.

The boycott comes after Japan’s Shimane Prefecture held a ceremony to commemorate the so-called "Takeshima Day’’ Friday in the presence of a vice-ministerial government official and more than 20 Japanese lawmakers.

The merchants’ fury against Japan is understandable and quite plausible, given Japan’s absurd claim to Dokdo, the country’s indisputable territory, but it’s obviously not good to turn a political issue into an economic one. More than anything else, both sides seem to have little to earn but much to lose from the escalation of the boycott campaign.

A case in point is the territorial dispute in the East China Sea between Beijing and Tokyo last year that left vast economic scars. Japan suffered huge trade deficits in the aftermath of the boycott campaign that swept China and Beijing, for its part, experienced a sharp fall in exports to Tokyo.

More worrisome is that Seoul could suffer more if the boycott campaign sparks trade frictions between the neighboring countries, given that it’s difficult for South Korean businesses to find substitutes for key components and material they import from Japan.

To be sure, it’s anachronistic for some nationalistic merchants in South Korea, the world’s 15th biggest economy and seventh largest trading nation, to launch a boycott campaign targeting a specific country. What’s needed now is to build up national power after a coolheaded assessment of the situation.