SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) – South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol met with Japanese business leaders and called for greater technical cooperation between the two countries, a key part of a broader effort to improve ties.
Yoon has met twice with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in recent weeks, overcoming historic rifts that have strained relations for years and sharing common issues such as a nuclear-armed North Korea and China’s growing claims in the EU. expressed their intention to strengthen cooperation in response to the challenges of region.
The two leaders are scheduled to meet again this weekend at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, where U.S. President Joe Biden is seeking to strengthen alliances with Japan and South Korea to counter North Korea’s China.
At a meeting with a delegation led by Mikio Sasaki, former CEO of Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan. Mr. Yoon, Chairman of the Japan-Korea Economic Association, enthusiastically spoke about the possibility of business cooperation on semiconductors, batteries and electric vehicles, as well as the possibility of building a more resilient supply chain amidst geopolitical uncertainty. According to Yoon’s office, Yoon said, “It is possible to have mutually complementary cooperation between South Korean companies, which have excellent manufacturing technology, and Japanese companies, which are highly competitive in terms of materials, parts, and equipment.
According to Yoon’s office, Sasaki told Yoon that exchanges between the two countries are increasing as ties begin to dissolve, and that his group encourages Japanese companies to hire more Korean students and young people.
Relations between Japan and South Korea have long been complicated by conflicts related to Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
The meeting between Yoon and Kishida comes after the government announced a controversial plan in March to use local funds to compensate a group of South Korean plaintiffs enslaved by Japanese companies during the colonial era. was broken The move aims to resolve disputes over a 2018 South Korean court ruling that required Japanese companies to pay reparations, and said all reparations issues would be governed by the 1965 treaty that normalized relations between states. It caused an angry backlash from the Japanese government, who insisted on it. The dispute spread to trade in 2019, when Japan tightened export controls on key chemicals South Korean companies need to make semiconductors and displays, leading South Korea to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization. The two countries have also downgraded each other’s trade status and South Korea has threatened to withdraw from a bilateral military intelligence-sharing pact that symbolizes trilateral security cooperation with the United States.
Following a meeting between Yoon and Kishida in March, South Korea withdrew its WTO complaint and Japan confirmed the lifting of export restrictions on chemicals. South Korea has also returned Japan to its preferred trading partner list, and Japan is now taking similar steps to bring South Korea back to its own preferred trading partner list.
