China News Service, May 13-According to Korean media reports, Japan has announced the implementation of export restrictions on South Korea for almost a year. South Korean authorities recently urged Japan to express its position on whether to withdraw the restriction measures as soon as possible.
Lee Hao-hyun, trade policy officer of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea, at a press conference on the 12th, urged Japan to express its stance on measures such as lifting export controls on South Korea within a month.
Li Hao-hyun said that the three reasons Japan had previously proposed to implement export controls were the interruption of the Korea-Japan policy dialogue, the inadequacy of conventional arms control, the lack of export management organizations and manpower. During the past 6 months, the South Korean government has conducted policy dialogues with Japan through formal and informal meetings to improve all issues.
He emphasized that all the reasons presented by the Japanese side have now been eliminated, so there is no reason for the Japanese side to continue to hesitate to deregulate or not, and asked the Japanese government to make a clear response on this before the end of May.
Since July 2019, Japan has restricted domestic companies from exporting three types of semiconductor and display key materials to South Korea. In August, it removed South Korea from its export whitelist. As a countermeasure, the ROK proposed to terminate the ROK-Japan Military Intelligence Protection Agreement, and in November decided to conditionally extend the agreement's termination period.