[Correspondent's View] Korea now wealthier than Japan — time to retire the "anti-Japan war-cry"

Aug 24, 2026, 10:01 am

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Choi Young-jae, Tokyo Correspondent

South Korea's exports totaled $496.7 billion in the first half of this year. Japan's stood at 60.6581 trillion yen. Converted at Japan's Ministry of Finance's average dollar-yen exchange rate for the period — 158.24 yen per dollar — that comes to $383.3 billion. Korea exported $113.4 billion more than Japan, a full 29.6% higher. Given the population difference, this is even more striking. Japan's population exceeds 120 million, while Korea's stands at just over 51 million. Japan, with more than double Korea's population, now trails Korea in exports.

Korea also leads Japan in nominal GDP per capita. Under the IMF's forecast for this year, Korea's nominal GDP per capita stands at $37,410, versus Japan's $35,700 — a gap of about $1,710 in Korea's favor. Within East Asia, Taiwan leads both at $42,100.

These are figures that would have been hard to imagine a generation ago. What matters here isn't boasting that Korea has "beaten" Japan. What matters is that these numbers are shaking the old assumptions underlying how we view Korea-Japan relations. Thirty or forty years ago, Japan was the economic powerhouse Koreans looked up to. Korean companies learned Japanese technology and built products using Japanese materials and components. People searched for Seoul's future in the streets of Tokyo. Koreans' feelings toward Japan back then combined not just the wounds of colonial rule but a vast economic gap as well — a complex mix of historical grievance and economic inferiority.

But the Korea of 2026 is not the Korea of that era. Yet political language sometimes still lingers in the past. A prime example is the anti-Japan "bamboo spear song," invoked by former presidential secretary for civil affairs Cho Kuk during the Moon Jae-in administration — summoning imagery from the bamboo spears of the late Joseon-era Donghak peasant uprising to describe 21st-century Korea-Japan economic friction. It's a style of politics that, whenever friction arises with Japan, immediately divides people into pro-Japan and anti-Japan camps. Can this kind of "bamboo spear" anti-Japan politics really explain today's Korea?

Of course, growing economic strength doesn't erase history. Japan's colonial rule is a historical fact. The comfort women and forced labor issues remain unresolved. When Japanese politicians distort history, Korea should clearly push back. But remembering history and treating Japan as an eternal enemy are two different things.

Moreover, the economic reality has completely changed. Korea is no longer a country looking up to Japan economically. The two compete head-to-head in global markets for semiconductors, shipbuilding, automobiles, and batteries. In culture, K-pop and Korean dramas have become part of everyday life for young Japanese people. The Japan today's twenty- and thirty-somethings encounter is different from the Japan their parents' generation knew — it's one of the closest neighbors they travel to, study in, consume culture from, meet at work, and compete against in global markets. Whether applying the political language of the past unchanged to this generation still fits reality is worth questioning.

Japan's own position has changed as well. Consider the map of Northeast Asia as seen by the Takaichi Sanae government. Relations with China are at their worst over Taiwan and the East China Sea. Diplomatic friction with Russia continues following President Putin's visit to the Kuril Islands. North Korea repeatedly launches nuclear-capable ballistic missiles near Japanese territory. Right next to a Japan simultaneously facing China, Russia, and North Korea as adversarial states sits Korea — a country that shares liberal democracy and a market economy, with world-class manufacturing and substantial defense capabilities.

That's why Korea matters more to today's Japan than at any point in the past. Korea needs Japan too. Korea cannot handle U.S.-China competition, supply chain restructuring, and the North Korean nuclear and missile issue alone. There's also considerable room for cooperation with Japan in semiconductors, advanced technology, energy, and economic security.

This is exactly where a new Korea-Japan relationship should begin. Korea has no reason to feel inferior to Japan. Nor does it have any reason to feel newly superior. Korea can confidently protest Japan's wrongdoings while cooperating without hesitation wherever national interests align. What's needed is diplomacy that doesn't forget the past, but also isn't held hostage by it.

Japan needs to change too. If any lingering tendency remains to look down on Korea within an old economic hierarchy, it should be abandoned. This is an era where Korea, with less than half of Japan's population, outpaced Japan by $113.4 billion in half-year exports. Korea has also surpassed Japan in nominal GDP per capita. Realities have shifted on both sides — there's no reason for politics alone to keep repeating the past. It's time to soberly ask whether the anti-Japan politics symbolized by the "bamboo spear song" can still explain today's Korean economy and the current state of affairs in Northeast Asia.

First-half exports in 2026: Korea, $496.7 billion; Japan, $383.3 billion. Numbers carry no emotion. What they tell us isn't that Korea has beaten Japan. It's that Korea has become a country that no longer needs to face Japan with fear or inferiority. Korea-Japan relations should be built anew, standing on that confidence.

Choi Young-jae

#Korea #Japan #Economy #Anti-Japan sentiment