For those who like to do their shopping in peace, any branch of Muji or Uniqlo in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, was a good choice this summer. Usually bustling with shoppers, these stores have been all but deserted for weeks as South Koreans, angry at Japan for imposing export restrictions on their country in July, have boycotted Japanese products and bought their clothes and home wares elsewhere instead.
Meanwhile in Japan, there has been a revival of old tropes about “untrustworthy” Koreans. Exasperation with their neighbours’ perceived inability to put the past behind them is spreading from diplomats to ordinary Japanese. Yet the two East Asian countries are both liberal democracies and firm regional allies of America. Why can't they get along?
The spat has been brewing since last October, when South Korea’s supreme court ruled that Japanese companies that used Koreans as forced labourers during the second world war were obliged to pay compensation to individual victims who were suing them.
