Prime Minister Abe Says Trade Dispute with Korea Linked to National Security Concerns
Prime Minister Abe claiming the current trade dispute with South Korea is only about national security concerns is about as believable as Japanese whaling for scientific research:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday that the main cause of escalating tensions between Japan and South Korea is a loss of trust over court rulings ordering Japanese companies to compensate South Koreans for forced labor during World War II.
Japan has imposed export controls on key materials for South Korea’s semiconductor industry and moved to downgrade the country’s trade status. It has insisted that the measures were related to national security concerns and were not in retaliation for the court rulings, which allowed the freezing of assets of three Japanese companies in South Korea to provide the compensation money.
Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony until the end of the war, and insists that all compensation issues were settled under a 1965 agreement normalizing ties.
Stars & Stripes
Prime Minister Abe probably has to say this is about national security concerns for legal reasons, but his is how Abe is rationalizing it:
Abe said last month that it is natural to assume that South Korea would fail export control promises because it already has broken the wartime compensation agreement.
You can read more at the link.
Of course the court ruling were like asking a dog if it’s hungry…my dog will literally eat until she gets sick if we allow it. So a Korean lawyer asks a Korean judge to punish a Japanese company for wartime crimes, despite multiple agreements under 2 administrations that these issues are settled. If the Japanese play full court hardball, I won’t blame them, commie moon pie and his cabal of coup members deserve it.