The reason can be traced back to the announcement issued by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on July 1 day, which restricted the export of three kinds of semiconductor materials used to manufacture televisions and smart phones to South Korea. At the same time, the Japanese government plans to exclude South Korea from the list of preferential targets of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law in August, which means canceling the preferential treatment for South Korea to import Japanese products. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said that the above measures were taken because "the trust relationship between Japan and South Korea has been seriously damaged". Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed that Japan's export control to South Korea does not violate the WTO agreement.
South Korean Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and Finance Hong Nanji condemned Japan's restrictions on exports to South Korea as "economic retaliation". Hong Nanji said that Japan's retaliatory measures run counter to international law and must be abolished. This will have a great impact on the Korean economy and even Japan. It will take a long time for the WTO complaint results to come out, so the ROK will also deal with them severely according to international law and domestic law.
Due to the Japanese government's "economic retaliation" measures, as a counterattack against Japan's trade restrictions, a large-scale anti-Japanese movement broke out in Korean society-Koreans began to stop buying goods imported from Japan and drinking Japanese beer, and many shops announced boycotts of Japanese goods.
Korean college student groups have staged individual demonstrations in Seoul many times, including in front of Uniqlo. ? Therefore, recently, anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea is high, and Uniqlo's "national encirclement and suppression" boycott broke out.