S. Korea returns Japan on 'White list' of trading partners
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The move came after South Korea removed Japan 3 years ago.
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Japanese Funakoshi Takehiro, right, director-general for Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau and Japanese Ando Atsushi, second right, deputy director-general of Defense Ministry's Defense Policy Bureau attend a meeting with South Korean Seo Min-jeong, left, director-general of the Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau and Woo Kyoung-suk, second left, deputy director-general of the International Policy Bureau, at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul Monday, April 17, 2023 (Jeon Heon-Kyun/Pool Photo via AP)
Three years after removing Japan from the "white list" of preferred trading partners, South Korea reinstated Japan on Monday, according to the South Korean Trade Ministry.
The ministry published a revised version of its public notice of strategic commodities imports and exports. Tokyo is once again identified as Seoul's preferred trading partner in the updated edition of the document, allowing South Korean businesses exporting strategic items to Japan to employ streamlined registration procedures and acquire authorization in five days rather than 15.
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Japan, for its part, is still considering when to add South Korea back to its own "white list."
According to South Korean government representatives, Tokyo required additional time to finish internal processes and evaluate laws, according to the Yonhap news agency.
A fresh round of trade discussions between the two nations is set to start later today in Tokyo, according to the article.
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In response to a ruling by the South Korean Supreme Court ordering Japanese corporations to compensate South Koreans who were forced to work against their will during Japan's colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, Japan removed South Korea from its "white list" in 2019. Seoul responded by making a similar move in response.
Seoul and Tokyo have already increased security cooperation, but bilateral ties have long been strained due to Tokyo's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
President Yoon Suk-Yeol of South Korea's new administration has chosen to prioritize normalizing ties rather than seeking reparations from Japan.
South Korea's export restrictions on minerals used to make semiconductors and screens have been lifted by Japan in retaliation, and Seoul has dropped its WTO protest in response. Additionally, the parties have agreed to normalize the sharing of military intelligence and to keep negotiating their inclusion on each other's "white lists." The 28 nations that make up South Korea's "white list" in addition to Japan include the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.
