Published on July 27, 2019. This article introduces a serialized column by Kadota Ryusho in the monthly magazine Hanada and discusses Japan’s review of preferential export treatment for South Korea and its removal from the white-country list as a historic turning point in Japanese diplomacy. Citing the abandonment of the comfort women agreement, the wartime labor rulings, the seafood import ban, and the radar-lock incident, it argues that the patience of the Japanese people has reached its limit and calls for vigilance toward the Foreign Ministry, the Japan–Korea parliamentary league, and pro-Korean media while seeking a true Japan–South Korea relationship.

July 27, 2019.
In addition to many years of repeated discourtesies, South Korea’s methods—the abandonment of the comfort women agreement, the “wartime labor” rulings, the ban on seafood imports, the radar-lock incident, and so on—have finally exceeded even the limits of the patient Japanese people’s endurance.
The following is from a serialized column by Kadota Ryusho, one of the finest active journalists, published at the beginning of Hanada, a monthly magazine released yesterday that every Japanese citizen and people throughout the world must read.
What the Japanese people are being asked in the “fight with South Korea.”
It is truly gratifying that, with Japan–South Korea relations entering a new stage, the very nature of Japanese diplomacy may fundamentally change.
The review of preferential export measures to South Korea for three items, including hydrogen fluoride, and the measure excluding South Korea from the “white countries” are historic and epoch-making.
South Korea must feel as if it has been struck on the head with a hammer.
For the first time, it has been hit by a counterattack from Japan, which it had completely looked down upon as a country it could treat however it wished.
This restriction against South Korea was something that could be done precisely because it was the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
In addition to many years of repeated discourtesies, South Korea’s methods—the abandonment of the comfort women agreement, the “wartime labor” rulings, the ban on seafood imports, the radar-lock incident, and so on—have finally exceeded even the limits of the patient Japanese people’s endurance.
In January of this year, Prime Minister Abe instructed each ministry to make concrete studies of countermeasures based on international law.
As the entire government entered into that work, the ministry that tackled it most earnestly was the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
It steadily and seriously searched for what would produce the greatest effect if restrictions against South Korea were imposed.
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Seko Hiroshige ordered officials to search for a method that would be effective and legally problem-free.
As a result of ministry-wide hearings and simulations, what should be done as sanctions against South Korea gradually became fixed.
Imai Takaya, the Prime Minister’s secretary from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, who enjoys Prime Minister Abe’s deep trust, and Team Abe, which is close to the Prime Minister and has built a distinctive Abe–Suga–Seko line within the Prime Minister’s Office, finally achieved an epoch-making change of course.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which for many years had allowed South Korea to do whatever it wanted, was shocked by this policy change.
No, to be precise, the latest measure was something that could be done because it was not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Japanese diplomats think only that “diplomacy means not making waves” or that “the first principle of diplomacy is to make concessions to the other side.”
Without being able to gather proper information at overseas diplomatic missions or build human networks in the other country, they continue an elegant diplomat’s life, and simply “finishing their term without trouble” is their basic posture.
We must not forget why South Korea became so arrogant in the first place.
South Korea is a country of servility to the great, which bows thoroughly before the strong and becomes overbearing toward the weak.
In fact, it was Japan that made that country into such a “rude country” toward Japan.
The Japan–Korea parliamentary league that gathered around vested interests, Japanese newspapers that fabricated the nonexistent forced taking of comfort women and inflamed Korean anger to the utmost, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which thought of nothing but “concessions” and “currying favor,” all joined together, and South Korea came to the outrageous misunderstanding that “it can do anything it wants to Japan.”
In other words, unless Japan changes those “internal enemies,” a new Japan–South Korea relationship will not be born in the future.
On the other hand, South Korea, now written off by Japan, is in a miserable state.
No matter how much President Moon Jae-in shouts, “The one that will suffer damage is the Japanese economy,” the South Korean economy cannot stand “without Japan.”
Let us see how far China can help South Korea.
As of July 17, Japan is saying, “This is not a restriction,” and Japan is now in the stage of “waiting” for South Korea to take retaliatory measures, such as imposing high tariffs on imports from Japan.
If South Korea resorts to retaliatory measures, Japan will likely take new methods in response.
In other words, from this point on, Japan’s true fearsome power will be displayed.
If Japan enters into sanctions on the financial side, the South Korean economy will not withstand it for a moment.
South Korean banks with poor financial conditions, for example, conduct trade settlements by using credit lines from Japanese banks, and can be called completely afflicted with “Japan-dependence disease.”
If this is restricted, credit anxiety will arise, and a currency crisis will begin all at once.
Also, if it becomes clear that hydrogen fluoride and other materials necessary for manufacturing nuclear weapons have been passed to North Korea, this would fall under Article 10 of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act, “when especially necessary for maintaining the peace and security of our country,” and it would become possible to apply the permission system for remittances to South Korea stipulated in Article 16 of the same Act.
In other words, each remittance to South Korea would require permission, and a de facto “state of remittance stoppage” from Japan would be created.
How one looks at a collapsing South Korea differs from person to person.
Japan need only quietly watch it receive the “retribution” for having trampled on and neglected Japan to the very end.
That is precisely when the three non-Korean principles—“do not help, do not teach, do not get involved”—should be exercised.
A true Japan–South Korea relationship will be born from there.
When Koreans look back one by one on the things they have done until now, for the first time the possibility will arise that the Pandora’s box called “historical truth” will open.
If a relationship of moderation and respect between nation and nation can be built between Japan and South Korea, it will be after that.
What is important for us is how we monitor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japan–Korea parliamentary league, and pro-Korean media such as Asahi and Mainichi, which will try to return the latest measures to square one.
Through the restrictions against South Korea, which are said to have received as much as 98 percent support on the Internet, I want to believe that, though it is still far in the future, a “true Japan–South Korea relationship” will be born.