The Japanese government has decided to completely restore Korea to the whitelist about four years after excluding it from the “whitelist” (export screening preferential treatment) in protest of the South Korean Supreme Court’s ruling on compensation for forced mobilization. Following South Korea’s restoration of Japan’s whitelist in April, Japan took the same steps, putting an end to the two countries’ dispute over export regulations.
At a ministerial meeting on the 27th, the Japanese government decided to add Korea to the “Partial Amendment of the Export Trade Control Ordinance” and add Korea as a country (whitelist) to the attached Table 3 of the Export Trade Control Ordinance. The revision will be promulgated on the 30th of this month and will take effect on the 21st of next month.
The revision of the ordinance allowed general comprehensive permits to be applied when exporting goods or providing technology from Japan to Korea, and excluded from the Catchall regulation (restriction on exports of goods that can be used for traditional weapons).
Prior to Japan, South Korea posted a “strategic material import and export notice” in its official gazette on April 24, which included Japan in its whitelist again.
The Korea-Japan export regulation conflict was triggered in 2018 when Japan protested the final ruling of the “compensation for victims of forced labor” made by the Korean Supreme Court against Japanese defendants.
Japan began restricting exports of three types of semiconductor materials in July 2019 in a de facto retaliatory move against the ruling, and next month removed South Korea from the whitelist. In response, South Korea also took countermeasures such as filing a lawsuit against Japan with the WTO and removing Japan from the whitelist.
The conflict was resolved when President Yoon Suk Yeol’s visit to Japan in March and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s summit in Seoul last month agreed to resolve the dispute over export regulations.
TED PARK
US ASIA JOURNAL
