South Korea removed the name of Japan from the trade whitelist (the list of its most reliable trading partners), starting a trade war in Asia! It means that the export of some strategic commodities to Japan will receive greater scrutiny compared with 28 other destinations in the world.
Last month Japan eliminated South Korea from the trade whitelist. According to Bloomberg, Korea declared that it was not retaliation and it was only done to improve the trend of exporting strategic commodities.
Moreover South Korea plans to terminate a U.S.-endorsed intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, and has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against its neighbor for imposing tighter export controls on goods key to tech manufacturing. This will face South Korean producers with major problem as they need Japanese raw materials for production.