Commercial Conflicts with China due to High Import Duties

Commercial conflict between Korea and China reached a peak, resulting
from emergency import duties on garlic produced in China. Recently, as
the Korean govern -ment imposed high import duties on garlic from Chi
na, the Chinese government responded by banning imports of mobile phon
es and polyethylene made in Korea. This provoked a serious commercial
conflict between the two countries.
With the Chinese government's ban on imports from Korea, Korean petroc
hemical industries are going to be in the red directly or indirectly b
y about $1.6 billion. Electronics industries estimate the deficit to b
e $300 million. Unless this state of affairs is resolved as quickly a
s possible, it could bring about a situation in which China may ban ot
her products like iron and textile goods, making the balance of trade
in related industries worse.
It has therefore been pointed out that Korean government should reexa
mine existing import duties on garlic to solve the commercial conflict
between the 2 countries. They should also prevent the possibility of
future conflicts by developing and enforcing legal devices to cope wi
th problems efficiently.