China News Agency, Beijing, August 19 (reporter Li Xiaoyu) Following the decision to move Japan out of the export "white list" that can enjoy trade facilitation, South Korea recently took countermeasures and announced that it will strengthen radioactive detection of imported waste from Japan. Beijing scholars believe that the trade dispute between Japan and South Korea continues to heat up, or will bring new challenges to the economies of ASEAN countries.

The ROK Environment Ministry said recently that it will strengthen environmental safety management for waste items with large imports, including strengthening the inspection of radioactive substances and heavy metals in waste batteries, tires and plastics imported from Japan.

According to official data, South Korea imported 71,000 tons of waste batteries and 66,000 tons of waste plastic from Japan last year, accounting for about 15% and 38% of the total amount of waste batteries and plastic imported from South Korea in the same period. The South Korean side said the move was based on "people's concerns about radiation from imported waste", but South Korean media mostly believe it is a countermeasure against Japan's economic retaliation.

However, Japan did not "change its mind" because of the implementation of countermeasures by South Korea, but became tougher. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Monday that Japan "will definitely take countermeasures" if South Korea moves ahead with the sale of assets of Japanese companies in accordance with its court ruling on former labor lawsuits, and is now considering options such as rejecting South Korea's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the future.

Yang Bojiang, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that Japan and South Korea are founded on trade, and trade disputes will not expand indefinitely, and it is not ruled out that Japan will moderate its stance toward South Korea after the upper house election. However, considering that the contradictions between Japan and the ROK involve historical grievances, territorial disputes, national and regional policy directions, which are intertwined and difficult to resolve, it is expected that the frictions will not be simply settled, and it is difficult to see a major improvement in bilateral relations in the short term.

China Foreign Affairs University Institute of International Relations professor Zhou Yongsheng also said that the trade dispute between Japan and South Korea is the outbreak of the accumulation of historical and territorial contradictions between the two countries for many years, and at present, there is no possibility of warming relations between Japan and South Korea.

If the economic and trade relations between Japan and South Korea continue to be strained, not only the two economies will suffer, but also ASEAN countries.

ASEAN is an important trading partner of the ROK. According to official data, South Korea's exports to the 10 ASEAN countries exceeded US $100 billion in 2018, accounting for 16.6 percent of South Korea's total exports, higher than that of the North American Free Trade Area and the European Union. Asean countries account for six of South Korea's top 15 export trading partners.

According to a report by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, in the final products of the electronic parts and equipment industry produced in ASEAN, South Korea's value-added contribution rate was 2.17% in the Philippines, 1.59% in Singapore, 0.32% in India and 0.6% in Indonesia, ranking first in the list of countries' foreign contribution rate. This means that a reduction in South Korea's export of electronic parts and equipment may hit related industries in Southeast Asia.

South Korea's semiconductor industry has been dependent on Japan for some key components, raw materials and technology imports. As Yang Bojiang said, this is a "deep dependence", once Japan's export control measures continue for a long time, South Korea's semiconductor industry is bound to be severely affected. In this case, ASEAN countries' electronic parts and equipment industries will also suffer.

At present, affected by the global economic downturn, the economy of some ASEAN countries has slowed down. Indonesia's economic growth slowed to 5.06 percent in the first half of this year, lower than market expectations. Thailand's economy grew just 2.8% in the first quarter, its slowest pace in four years.

For China, the trade dispute between Japan and South Korea is both a danger and an opportunity.

China is the largest trading partner of the ROK and Japan. Chen Jian, director of the Pacific Institute of Economic Studies at Renmin University of China, said in an interview with China News Service that in terms of economic connectivity, China, Japan and the ROK are actually higher than Japan and the ROK. In this context, the trade dispute between Japan and South Korea is likely to further increase their dependence on the Chinese economy.

In the view of Li Qingru, an associate researcher at the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Korean companies have been "jammed" by Japan, showing that Japan, which occupies a high-end position in the global industrial chain, has the ability to hit and dominate its rivals. China should be more aware of the gap between itself and the United States and Japan in high-tech industries, and should speed up to make up for its shortcomings in the future.

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