On 1 July 2019, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced that Japan would tighten regulations on the export to South Korea of several essential semiconductor materials, such as hydrogen fluoride, photoresist, and etching gas. Although the Japanese government officially denied it, the South Korean government presumed that the Japanese decision was a direct reaction to the recent South Korean Supreme Court ruling that required a major Japanese company to pay compensation to Koreans who had been forced to work as laborers during the Pacific War era (Lee and Kim
