经济学人下载:日本和韩国之间的贸易争端(1)

Leaders
来源于《社论》版块

Export controls in Asia
亚洲的出口管制

History wars
历史战争

A trade dispute between Japan and South Korea has echoes of Donald Trump’s tactics
日本和韩国之间的贸易争端与唐纳德•特朗普的策略如出一辙

Take just about any trade fight today, and President Donald Trump’s America is at the centre of it: with Europe over cars and aeroplanes; with foreign producers of steel; with China over, well, everything. But a brawl now under way in Asia, between Japan and South Korea, has the potential to be as damaging as much of what Mr Trump has stirred up. It is also a sign that his model of abusing economic partners is spreading.
就拿今天的任何一场贸易战来说吧，唐纳德·特朗普总统领导下的美国正处于这场贸易战的中心：在汽车和飞机问题上与欧洲对抗；与外国钢铁生产商合作；随着中国的结束，嗯，一切都结束了。但如今在亚洲、日本和韩国之间正在发生的一场争吵，其破坏性可能不亚于特朗普挑起的事端。这也表明，他滥用经济伙伴的模式正在蔓延。

Tensions between Japan and South Korea go back centuries. Japan’s colonisation of Korea between 1910 and 1945 is still resented. Japan believes a 1965 agreement resolved claims by South Korea over forced labour. It is incensed that South Korea’s supreme court last year ordered Japanese firms to compensate victims. Amid a widening rift, Japan took its most serious action on July 4th when it began restricting exports to South Korea of three specialised chemicals used to make semiconductors and smartphones.
日本和韩国之间的紧张关系可以追溯到几百年前。1910年至1945年间，日本对朝鲜的殖民统治至今仍令人怨恨。日本认为，1965年的一项协议解决了韩国对强迫劳动的要求。去年，韩国最高法院下令日本公司赔偿受害者，这让韩国感到愤怒。在日益扩大的分歧中，日本在7月4日采取了最严重的行动，开始限制向韩国出口三种用于制造半导体和智能手机的特殊化学品。

The stakes are high. Japan accounts for as much as 90% of global production of these chemicals. It exported nearly $400mworth of them to South Korea last year. That may not sound like much, but their importance is outsized. They are needed to make memory chips, which are essential to all sorts of electronic devices. And South Korean firms are the world’s dominant manufacturers of memory chips. If Japan were to choke off exports, the pain would ripple through global tech supply chains.
风险很高。日本占全球这些化学品产量的90%。去年，中国向韩国出口了价值近4亿美元的稀土。这听起来可能不算什么，但它们的重要性却被夸大了。它们被用来制造存储芯片，而存储芯片对各种电子设备都是必不可少的。韩国公司是世界上内存芯片的主要制造商。如果日本切断出口，其痛苦将波及全球科技供应链。

Japan has also hinted that it might start requiring case-bycase licences for the sale to South Korea of some 850 products with military uses. South Korean firms have called for boycotts of Japanese goods. The two countries, whose trade relationship, worth over $80bn a year, is larger than that between France and Britain, need to step back from the brink.
日本还暗示，它可能会开始要求向韩国出售约850种军用产品的个案许可证。韩国公司呼吁抵制日货。两国的贸易关系每年超过800亿美元，超过了法国和英国之间的贸易关系。