South Korea’s military will conduct two days of drills around a tiny island also claimed by Japan, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, just days after Seoul decided to scrap an intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo amid worsening relations.
Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over the sovereignty of the group of islets called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, which lie about halfway between the East Asian neighbours in the Sea of Japan, which Seoul refers to as the East Sea.
The military drills were scheduled to begin on Sunday, Yonhap reported, and could exacerbate tensions between the two neighbours.
South Koreas on Thursday had announced the scrapping of the intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, drawing a swift protest from Tokyo and deepening a decades-old dispute over history that has hit trade and undercut security cooperation over North Korea.
Relations between South Korea and Japan began to deteriorate late last year following a diplomatic row over compensation for wartime forced labourers during Japan’s occupation of Korea.
They soured further when Japan tightened its curbs on exports of high-tech materials needed by South Korea’s chip industry, and again this month when Tokyo said it would remove South Korea’s fast-track export status.
The disputed islands have long been one of the most sensitive areas of contention for South Korea and Japan. Recently, South Korea and Japan traded words over the way the islands were described on a website for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
The islands were at the centre of a more serious clash in July, when both South Korea and Japan responded to what they saw as a violation of their air space near the islands by a Russian military plane.
“Tariffs,” Mr. Trump said to his team, one of the people said. Those present included his national-security adviser John Bolton, top economic adviser Lawrence Kudlow, China adviser Peter Navarro and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
All of them, save Mr. Navarro, a China hawk, adamantly objected to the tariffs, the people said. That spurred a debate lasting nearly two hours, one of the people said.
Both the foreign and commerce ministries said the US would have to “bear all the consequences”and demanded more sincerity from Washington if negotiations were to continue following the president’s latest announcement, which caught many in Beijing off guard.
Officials did not give details on the possible counter measures China would take, but observers said China would be less willing to buy US agricultural products, and could restrict exports of rare earths – a key material used in the manufacturing of hi-tech products such as smartphones .
It may also speed up the production of its list of “unreliable entities” – companies deemed to pose a threat to China’s interests – a measure that could target US firms and hamper their operations in China.
