On the 11th, local time, South Korea’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources, Minister of Commerce and Trade, Yu Mingxi, said at the press conference that the South Korean government decided to appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Japan’s restrictions on exports to South Korea.
The report said that more than two months ago, the Japanese government began to restrict the export of three key industrial materials to South Korea. These three materials are critical to the production of chips and displays and may be a heavy blow to South Korea's pillar technology industry.
Yu Mingxi said that after the South Korean Grand Court ruled on the Korean Workers Claims in World War II, Japan adopted political restrictions (trade restrictions), a discriminatory measure that directly targets South Korea.
Yu Mingxi said that the move is aimed at protecting South Korea’s interests and avoiding the recurrence of economic and trade events for politics.
In October and November 2018, the Supreme Court of South Korea sentenced Japanese companies to compensate for Korean labor forced during the colonization of the Korean peninsula, causing dissatisfaction with the Japanese side. The Japanese side insisted that according to the "Japan-South Korea Claims Agreement" signed by the two countries in 1965, the Korean people could no longer claim from the Japanese side, but this view has not been recognized by the South Korean side.
In early July 2019, the Japanese government announced that it would strengthen the control of raw materials for the three semiconductor industries exported to South Korea, triggering trade friction between Korea and Japan and continuing to ferment. The Japanese side said that the reason for taking control measures is that South Korea has problems in export management, and the South Korean side accused Japan of this as an "economic retaliation" for the South Korean Supreme Court to sentence Japanese companies to compensate for forced labor cases.