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| President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with Softbank Chairman Masayoshi Son during their meeting at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap |
By Do Je-hae, Kim Yoo-chul
The government said late Thursday that Japan has violated World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, adding it would file a complaint with the organization.
"Japan's decision to tighten controls on exports of high-tech materials to South Korean companies is a violation of WTO rules. Cheong Wa Dae will apply diplomatic measures to counter the Japanese move. That includes filing a complaint with the WTO," chief presidential press secretary Yoon Do-han told reporters following a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the presidential office.
Yoon said Tokyo's July 1 announcement of restrictive regulations on the export of certain products to South Korean firms was "against the fair trade law," and stressed that the administration will inform its major trade partners of Tokyo's "unfair action."
Cheong Wa Dae said senior presidential adviser Kim Hyun-chong was consulting with Samsung and other technology companies affected by the "export curbs."
Starting Thursday, Tokyo has required Japanese producers of fluorine polyimide, photoresists and etching gas to apply for individual product export licenses when shipping them to Korean firms. The three are used in the manufacture of semiconductors and displays for TVs and smartphones. The move is feared to hamper core supplies for South Korea's leading display and memory chip fabricators, such as Samsung, LG and SK.
Seoul also views the export "restrictions" as "economic retaliation" following a Supreme Court ruling here on wartime forced labor before and during World War II. It ruled that Japanese firms were liable to pay compensation to such laborers.
"This economic retaliation violates international law, so Tokyo must retract it," Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said during a radio interview. "If the export curbs continue, they will damage not just the Korean economy but also that of Japan."
The announcement came amid worsening Korea-Japan relations due to the longstanding historical conflict dating back to Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea. The court ruling last year was rejected by the Japanese firms which refused to comply with it. Pushed by their government, they insisted that all compensation issues related to the colonial period were settled following the 1965 normalization of diplomatic ties in agreements related to these.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said a day earlier that the export restrictions were being imposed because Korea "had not kept its promise," and that they did not violate WTO agreements. This was during a national TV debate ahead of official campaigning for the July 21 Upper House election. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday that the export curbs were due to "security reasons."
Meanwhile, President Moon Jae-in met with SoftBank founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Masayoshi Son at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. During their meeting, they discussed related to the economy and technology, including venture startups and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Korean-Japanese billionaire has often spoken of AI as the most domineering force in future industries.
Creating a venture boom is an integral component of President Moon's innovative growth initiative. Cheong Wa Dae explained that under the current administration, the number of venture firms has consistently increased. The number of unicorn companies ― startups valued at over $1 billion ― is also rising.
"Last year, there were three unicorn companies, and now there are nine, placing Korea fifth in terms of the number of such firms," Cheong Wa Dae spokeswoman Ko Min-jung said.
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