S Korea to tighten inspections on waste imports from Japan

He added that the move is "not a countermeasure against a trade spat or tightening of exports regarding a specific country," without naming Japan.

The timing of this says someone's pants are on fire...

Well, that will also mean less revenue for South Korea which will lead to less jobs in that sector.

Taking about cutting your nose to spite your face.

Please South Korea, go ahead and tighten the export of that radioactive noise called Kpop while you’re at it.

Urm isn't waste import should be tightened and monitored regardless anyway? So, what the Korean government have done before this? Sleeping on jobs?

I read on Der Spiegel that a few countries in Europe have turned away steel imported from India that was contaminated with radiation. My guess is that Indian businesses found it cheaper to melt down their contaminated steel and dilute it with uncontaminated steel, and sell it to other countries, than to deal with the contaminated products responsibly.

In this day and age it is a good idea to check for imported products that might be contaminated with radiation, especially from countries known to be offenders.

Well, they learned from Abe administration

Right.

“156 admitted export violations to North Korea” vs “uh... because we said so?”

If they were trying to learn from Abe, they should have paid better attention in class.

Punch. Counter punch. Big punch. Big counter punch. Somebody's knees are going to get wobbly soon and their corner will be forced to throw in the towel. Dying to see who gets that TKO first!

Interesting discussion.

One must also remember here that the so called exports do not happen by forced selling and delivery.

Here in Japan, much of the waste products exported are actually being exported by companies from the importing countries or persons from those countries as they come to "buy" from Japan.

From used cars to scrap steel, the pricing for used and waste products often are so low in Japan that those companies make huge profits exporting and importing into their countries.

But the issue here is "inspection". It is and has been each country's responsibility to "monitor" and "inspect" imports as they do in customs and agriculture. Part of that is to "rest" regularly depending on the item.

When the "risk" is higher that country must adjust accordingly.

What S Korea just admitted was that as with the monitoring of exporting prohibited items, which they also admitted, they themselves mishandled and were not responsible enough.

It is a surprise that the S Korean people do not rise up in protest and demand better monitoring and inspection after this announcement.

They were only checking once per quarter?

Looks like SK is going back to 1980s and 1970s when Japanese goods was banned for political reasons. Gradually such thing is happening. I would not be surprised if Japanese entertainment and anything that portrays Japanese culture be banned again by those politicians.

@extanker

The timing of this says someone's pants are on fire...

Well, they learned from Abe administration.