Linda Kim SEOUL, August 8 -- Japan has approved export of a high-tech material to South Korea for the first time since imposing tighter curbs last month, but doubled down on political pressure and warned it could broaden restrictions on shipments to its Asian neighbor. The approval and subsequent warning illustrate how Tokyo is upping the ante in the diplomatic row while at the same time is unwilling to unilaterally stop exports to South Korea. The dispute, rooted in their wartime past and exacerbated by the recent tightening of curbs on shipments of three high-tech components, has stoked nationalism and raised trade concerns. Relations between the two United States allies worsened late in 2018 as part of a decades-old dispute over compensation for forced laborers during Japan’s occupation. South Korea has invoked its difficult history with Japan, which colonized the Korean peninsula during World War II. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday (Aug 8) that tighter curbs would undermine Japan’s international credibility and accused Tokyo of using its industrial advantage as a weapon against another country. “The measures so far undermine the trust of the free trade order and the international division of labor,” Mr Moon said. “Even if there are any gains, it will be short-lived. In the end, it is a game without winners, where everyone, including Japan itself, becomes a victim.” The latest export approval followed “strict examination”, Japanese ministers said, cautioning that Tokyo could consider expanding its controls beyond the three high-tech materials. "If improper use of exports are found beyond three high-tech materials, we will implement thorough steps to prevent recurrence including expanding application examination,” Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko said. Mr Seko said Japan does not usually announce each export approval but did so this time after South Korea described Japan’s recent curbs as an “embargo” on shipments. South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Tokyo had allowed the export of EUV photo resists, a chemical crucial for Samsung’s advanced contract chip making production. Samsung declined to comment. WHITE LIST Japan has removed South Korea from the “ white list” of countries with fast-track trade status, meaning some exporters may have to go through a lengthy permit application process to ship restricted items to South Korea. That covers a broad range of items, including those applicable to weapons production and machine tools. South Korea was scheduled to take a call on its plan to drop Japan from a similar “white list” of countries on Thursday, but trade ministry officials said the plan had been put off until further discussions. Japanese officials have cited unspecified security reasons for their export curbs. But they have pointed to an erosion of trust after South Korean court rulings last year ordered Japanese firms to compensate wartime forced laborers. Japan says the matter was settled by a 1965 treaty normalizing bilateral ties. Given the curbs in place, Japan’s approval to export the three materials could take up to 90 days, slowing shipments. Shares of Tokyo Ohka Kogyo rose 3.9 per cent and Stella Chemifa surged 10.1 per cent after the latest approval. Tokyo Ohka Kogyo makes photo resists and Stella Chemifa produces hydrogen fluoride, both materials affected by the export curbs. But it remains unclear if the initial approval from Tokyo signals a breakthrough in trade relations. “They approved only one out of a number of items, and they said they would approve exports for pure civilian purposes,” a South Korean senior trade ministry official said. South Korean chipmakers are hitting a dead end in their quest to find alternatives for key Japanese materials that have been hit with export restrictions, raising the prospect of major disruption to their operations in coming months. Of particular concern is sourcing of hydrogen fluouride, a key chipmaking material. South Korean chipmakers have been desperate for Japan’s high-purity hydrogen fluoride because it helps them get high “yield” rates, which is critical to making chips profitably.
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Linda Kim PYONGYANG, August 7 -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared that the latest series of missile launches by Pyongyang send "adequate warning" over the South Korea-US military drills. The country's state news media reported on Wednesday that Kim made the statement as he inspected on Tuesday the launch of a new type of tactical guided missiles - the fourth test in 12 days. KCNA said Kim had watched the launches, which verified the "war capacity" of the new armament.North Korea says US 'hell-bent' on sanctions despite seeking dialogue. With the launches carried out satisfactorily, "Kim Jong Un noted that the said military action would be an occasion to send an adequate warning to the joint military drill now under way by the US and South Korean authorities," KCNA said. The drills are taking place despite Pyongyang's warnings that the exercises would jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the US and North Korea. In Tokyo on Wednesday, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper met with his Japanese counterpart, Takeshi Iwaya, to discuss the latest developments in North Korea, as well as tensions in the South China Sea. Esper visited Australia and New Zealand before arriving in Japan. He will travel to Mongolia and South Korea during the latter part of his Asia trip. On Tuesday, Pyongyang fired two projectiles that "are assumed to be short-range ballistic missiles" into the sea, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said earlier. US President Donald Trump last week downplayed North Korea's launches calling them "very standard", while adding that Kim would not want to "disappoint" him. Trump and Kim held an historic summit in Singapore last year, where North Korea made a vague pledge on denuclearisation. Linda Kim SEOUL, August 5 -- South Korea and the United States began a joint military drill Monday despite warnings from North Korea, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong Doo told parliament. The scaled-back combined command post exercise, called 19-2 Dong Maeng, will be held through Aug. 20 to test South Korea's capability to retake operational control over its forces from the United States during wartime. It mostly involves computer simulations, not mobilization of troops or military equipment. North Korea has said it launched two projectiles, suspected of being short-range ballistic missiles, on July 26 to send a warning to the South over the exercise, which it condemns as a rehearsal for an invasion. It also fired projectiles last Wednesday and Friday, and the South Korean and U.S. militaries are on alert more such provocations during and after the period of the exercise. North Korea has warned that going ahead with the exercise would undermine a commitment made by U.S. President Donald Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and could adversely affect working-level negotiations with the United States. South Korea and the United have not held large-scale military drills since June last year when Trump, following his summit with Kim in Singapore, said he wanted to halt "war games" while continuing dialogue with North Korea, calling them "tremendously expensive" and "very provocative." In March, the two sides scrapped two major annual military exercises -- Key Resolve, and Foal Eagle -- that Pyongyang had viewed as provocative, in a bid to support diplomatic efforts on North Korea's denuclearization. At the same time, they launched the smaller-scale Dong Maeng as a replacement for Key Resolve, a computer-simulated command-and-control exercise, and did away with the "counterattack" portion of the exercise, for example. As for Foal Eagle, a field training exercise, it is reportedly being reorganized into low-key smaller-scale drills to be conducted at regular intervals. Linda Lim From early in the morning, many citizens laid flowers and bowed before giant statues of North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung and former leader Kim Jong Il, the current leader's grandfather and father, on Mansu Hill in the heart of the capital. North Korean university students -- the men wearing suits and the women clad in the country's high-waisted, long-skirted traditional dresses -- gathered at squares across Pyongyang to dance and celebrate the anniversary.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday that the test of the "new-type tactical guided weapon" on Thursday morning was aimed at sending a "solemn" warning against South Korea's plan to carry out a joint military drill with the United States next month. North Korea has long called on the United States and the South to halt joint military exercises that Pyongyang regards as rehearsals for invasion. On June 30, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed at their meeting at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom that the two countries would resume stalled denuclearization talks within weeks. North Korea designates July 27 as a holiday. In the nation's capital, slogans to celebrate the "victory" in war appear in public spaces. Western countries including Japan share the view that in the war that started in 1950, the U.S.-led United Nations forces had fought alongside South Korea following the North's invasion of the South in June of that year, supported by China and the Soviet Union. In contrast, North Korea claims that the United States waged the war in conspiracy with the South to topple the North. Ensuring the continuation of the political system led by the Kim family is a long-sought goal by Pyongyang. Hostilities ceased with an armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953, by the U.N. Command, North Korea's military and Chinese armed forces. U.N. Security Council resolutions have banned North Korea from using ballistic missile technology, but Trump has downplayed Pyongyang's latest ballistic missile launches just as he had done after similar missile tests in May. "They haven't done nuclear testing. They really haven't tested missiles other than, you know, smaller ones," Trump said in a telephone interview with Fox News, emphasizing that he is getting along with Kim "very well." Pyongyang fired two missiles from its east coast that fell in the Sea of Japan on Thursday morning, with Seoul saying they were a new type of short-range ballistic missile that flew about 600 kilometers. At working-level talks ahead of the second Trump-Kim summit in February, the United States and North Korea, which have no diplomatic relations, were preparing to declare an end to the Korean War. But at their meeting in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, Kim and Trump fell short of a deal over the gap between Washington's insistence on denuclearization and Pyongyang's demand for economic sanctions relief. At the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit in June 2018 in Singapore, Trump promised to provide security guarantees to Pyongyang, while Kim committed to the "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Linda Lim SEOUL, July 27 -- Two South Koreans died and several others, including athletes attending world aquatic championships, were injured after a balcony collapsed under the weight of party-goers at a South Korean nightclub, local police said Saturday. The balcony at the venue close to the athletes’ village in Gwangju was a mangled wreck after it gave way and dropped around five meters, as clubbers ran to the exit screaming.A 38-year-old and a 27-year-old were rushed to hospital in grave condition after the inside balcony gave away at around 2.30am on Saturday, but both died from their injuries, according to local media, reporting that 16 people sustained injuries in the accident."An internal balcony collapsed at a club in Gwangju, killing two and injuring many, though the number of those injured could increase," said Mr Song Gi-ju, a detective with the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency." An autopsy is planned for the two tomorrow. The two, who are locals, are not related to the swimming competition." The 16 injured comprised of 10 foreigners, of which eight are athletes participating in the championships.The eight injured athletes include three Americans, two New Zealanders, one Dutch, one Brazilian and one Italian. Police said earlier that among the Americans was a male diver and a female polo player. Two athletes were treated at Chosun University Hospital, one was treated at an unnamed Gwangju hospital, and the remainder went to the athletes village medical center for treatment for minor injuries, it said. "This is an awful tragedy,” said Mr Christopher Ramsey, CEO of USA Water Polo. "Players from our men’s and women’s teams were celebrating the women’s world championship victory when the collapse occurred at a public club. "Our hearts go out to the victims of the crash and their families." Mr Ramsey added that all the American water polo players were "safe". Pictures showed the mangled wreckage of the balcony that collapsed under the weight of party-goers. "The site of the collapse was at the center of the club where customers were most heavily located," said the party-goer, surnamed Kim. The New Zealand water polo teams were also present, according to the New Zealand Herald. Their men’s captain told Radio Sport: "We were just dancing and then the next minute we dropped five or six meters and everyone started rushing out of the club after that. We, I guess, fell on top of the heads of other people that were beneath us." Water Polo Australia said some of its players were in the club but were unhurt. "Water Polo Australia can confirm that members of the Australian women’s water polo team were celebrating their world championship bronze medal win at an establishment in Gwangju, South Korea last night when part of the balcony collapsed," it said a statement. Organizers Fina said it "deeply regrets the situation and sends its best wishes to any victims of this accident". "As some Championships’ participants were present at the moment of the accident, Fina is carefully monitoring the situation and will activate all measures to ensure health care and assistance is provided whenever necessary," it said in a statement. The world championships end on Sunday. Linda Lim SEOUL, July 26 -- Following the world's second-largest chip maker SK hynix's decision to reduce memory chip production this year, investors and market experts are turning their attention to the largest chip maker, Samsung Electronics. SK hynix said Thursday it will turn part of its DRAM fabrication line in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, over to non-memory CMOS image sensor (CIS) lines. It will reduce DRAM production capacity starting in the fourth quarter, the firm said, adding it also plans to reduce NAND wafer input by more than 15 percent this year, up from its earlier plan to decrease it by 10 percent. The move comes as the firm's second-quarter operating profit plummeted 89 percent from a year earlier to 637.6 billion won ($589 million) on lower memory chip prices and weak demand, in addition to persisting uncertainties in the global economy. Samsung Electronics is also expected to announce disappointing earnings for the second quarter, given it stated in its earnings guidance announced on July 5 that its operating profit might have plunged 56 percent from a year earlier. According to price tracker DRAM eXchange, the DRAM price was $3.31 per unit in June, down from $7.25 in December. Amid the chip industry downturn, the third-largest memory maker Micron Technology has also announced plans to cut DRAM and NAND flash output. A Samsung Electronics official said, "There is nothing I can talk about." Industry analysts said if Samsung joins moves to adjust memory chip production, it will reduce supply in the global market that is dominated by the three companies and this would contribute to curbing the price slump. "If the chip prices continue to decrease at the current pace, SK hynix and Micron's DRAM business will suffer operating losses within the year, and Samsung Electronics will go into deficit within the first half of next year," Yuanta Securities analyst Lee Jae-yoon said. "The necessity to cut production capacity will inevitably expand among memory chip makers." Meritz Securities analyst Kim Seon-woo said the smartphone market has continued to slow, while major clients have delayed the purchase of memory chips for their servers. "A fall in chip prices has failed to expand demand," Kim said. "To make SK hynix's strategy to adjust production capacity valid, Samsung Electronics will also need to join moves to systematically cut output. Samsung will need to make a bold decision to adjust manufacturing capacity." But from Samsung's point of view, it would be hard to announce a decision to cut production even if it is necessary as the move would exert enormous pressure on the global IT industry. If the tech giant joined the moves of the two other major chip makers, it could also possibly provoke a price-fixing controversy. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron have often been embroiled in price-fixing allegations in the United States, Europe and China. The Chinese government is investigating the three firms over their alleged involvement in fixing memory chip prices. Linda Lim WASHINGTON, July 26 -- US President Donald Trump on Thursday did not condemn North Korea for launching two new short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. Speaking to Fox News, Trump said North Korea has not tested missiles other than "smaller ones" and that he is getting along "very well" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In his first reaction to the launches earlier Thursday, Mr Trump said, "They haven't done nuclear testing. They really haven't tested missiles other than you know smaller ones." The remarks came after the State Department urged Pyongyang to refrain from further provocations. "We urge no more provocations," department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said at a press briefing, as she expressed hope that the two sides will promote negotiations to address North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes. "We want to have diplomatic engagement with the North Koreans," Ms Ortagus said. "We continue to press and hope for these working-level negotiations to move forward." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said separately that the door remains open for diplomacy with North Korea despite Thursday's launches, and that he hopes working-level talks will begin as early as August. "President Trump has been incredibly consistent here: We want diplomacy to work," Mr Pompeo said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "If it takes another two weeks or four weeks, so be it." Mr Pompeo described the launches as more of a negotiating tactic than a move that would create a rupture or lead Mr Trump to reverse his commitment to talks with Mr Kim. "Everybody tries to get ready for negotiations and create leverage and create risk for the other side," he said. "We remain convinced that there's a diplomatic way forward, a negotiated solution to this." Thursday's launches came less than a month after Mr Trump and Mr Kim agreed to restart denuclearization talks that stalled after their meeting in February in Hanoi. In their talks on June 30 in the Demilitarised Zone dividing the two Koreas, Mr Trump said he and Kim agreed to each designate a team to work out details. "What would be most productive is for chairman Kim and all his staff and for President Trump and his staff to continue upon the path that was laid out for us both in Vietnam and the DMZ, and that is a diplomatic resolution and the end of North Korea's nuclear weapons," Ms Ortagus said. She was referring to Kim's title as head of the North's ruling Workers' Party of Korea. Ms Ortagus added that sanctions "will remain in effect" until the US achieves the goal of denuclearizing North Korea. The spokeswoman suggested Mr Pompeo is unlikely to hold talks with North Korean officials during his visit to Thailand next week for Association of Southeast Asian Nations-related foreign ministerial meetings. "There's no component to announce on the trip as it relates to North Korea," she said. "We don't have any announcements about meetings with North Koreans." Ms Ortagus declined comment on news reports that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho has cancelled his attendance at the Asean Regional Forum, a 27-member security forum, slated for Aug 2 in Bangkok. Linda Lim SEOUL, July 23 -- South Korean jets fired warning shots after a Russian military plane violated South Korea's airspace on Tuesday, Seoul officials said, in the first such incident between the countries. Three Russian military planes initially entered South Korea's air defense identification zone off its east coast before one of them entered the country's territorial sky, the South's Defense Ministry said. South Korean fighter jets then scrambled to the area to fire warning shots, a ministry official said, requesting anonymity due to department rules. The Russian plane left the area but it returned and violated the South Korean airspace again later Tuesday, the ministry official said. He said the South Korean fighter jets fired warning shots again. Each time, the Russian plane didn't return fire, the official said. It was the first time a Russian military plane violated South Korean airspace, according to South Korean officials. The airspace the Russian plane violated was above a group of South Korean-held islets roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan that has been a source of territorial disputes between them. Russia isn't a party in those disputes. The three Russian planes had entered the South Korean air defense identification zone with two Chinese military planes. But it wasn't immediately known whether the two countries deliberately did so, according to the South Korean official. Before their joint flights with the Russian planes, the Chinese planes entered South Korea's air defense identification zone off its southwest coast earlier Tuesday, according to the South Korean official. Chinese planes have occasionally entered South Korea's air defense identification zone in recent years. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it plans to summon Russian and Chinese Embassy officials later Tuesday to register formal protests. SEOUL, June 30 -- President Donald Trump stepped foot into North Korea on Sunday, making him the first US leader to enter the country. The two leaders greeted each other warmly after crossing the open ground of the de-militarised zone separating the country. “Stepping across that line was a great honour, a lot of progress has been made,” Mr Trump told the assembled press after Kim Jong-Un accompanied him back onto the South Korean side of the de-militarised zone. South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced that Mr Kim accepted Mr Trump’s invitation to meet when the US president visits the heavily fortified site at the Korean border village of Panmunjom. Mr Moon praised the two leaders for “being so brave” to hold the meeting and said: “I hope President Trump will go down in history as the president who achieves peace on Korean Peninsula.” Earlier, Mr Trump expressed his desire to be the first sitting US president to cross into North Korea when he makes his first trip to the DMZ. “I look forward to saying hello to him if that all finally works out,” Mr Trump said. “I guess there’s always a chance that it might not, but it sounds like the teams would like to have that work out, so that’s good.” Mr Trump made his audacious offer to meet Mr Kim at the DMZ in a tweet on Saturday before meetings at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, jolting the gathering of world leaders as well as officials in the US and Seoul. The American and South Korean governments have scrambled to arrange the meeting, but there is so far no public indication Mr Kim will show up. BANGKOK, June 21 -- Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations are set to discuss at their weekend summit a planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year in South Korea, an ASEAN diplomat said. "If the leaders agree, the meeting will take place this November in Busan, South Korea," the diplomat said on the condition of anonymity, The diplomat said the topic is on the agenda at a two-day ASEAN summit that begins Saturday in Bangkok. It will also be discussed by foreign ministers ahead of the summit. ASEAN leaders have been carefully considering how to go about extending the invitation to North Korea, fearing that it may discredit the honor of ASEAN "if Kim turns it down," the diplomat said. ASEAN and South Korea will be holding a Commemorative Summit, which will mark the 30th anniversary of the Korea-ASEAN Dialogue Relations, on Nov. 25-26 in Busan. South Korean President Moon Jae In is said to be mulling a joint invitation, to be signed by ASEAN leaders and himself, while others have suggested that Moon either extend an invitation himself or that Thailand, as ASEAN chair, extend it. The main topic for discussion will be "peace and stability in the region, and the role of ASEAN," the diplomat said. If the meeting takes place, it is proposed to be a tripartite "special session" among ASEAN leaders and the leaders of North and South Korea. When asked who initiated the proposed meeting with Kim, the diplomat said Indonesia, but soon after South Korea also broached the topic. He added that if the meeting materializes, it will be a turning point in North Korea diplomacy, with the 10-member group taking a greater role in talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program. Negotiations on denuclearization have stalled since a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim, held in February in Hanoi, ended without an agreement due to a gap over the scope of North Korea's denuclearization and sanctions relief from the United States. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. All 10 nations have diplomatic ties with North Korea. SEOUL, May 31 -- North Korea's special representative for U.S. affairs Kim Hyok Chol, who led his country's preparations for its February meeting with the United States, has been executed for his role in the summit's breakdown, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday. Citing an unnamed North Korean source, The Chosun Ilbo said the former ambassador to Spain was executed along with four senior Foreign Ministry officials in March at Mirim Airport in the suburbs of Pyongyang. The source said the punishment came after an investigation was conducted. The report, which is yet to be independently verified, also said Kim Jong Un's younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, has been laying low after accompanying her brother to the summit in Hanoi with U.S. President Donald Trump. Kim Hyok Chol, who was involved in the pre-summit talks while serving on North Korea's powerful State Affairs Commission, and the ministry officials were accused of being U.S. "spies" who betrayed Kim Jong Un, according to the report. Kim Yong Chol, a close aide to Kim Jong Un who was seen to have led the country's diplomatic efforts with the United States and South Korea, was banished to a hard labor and re-education camp in Chagang Province. He was dismissed as director of the United Front Department of the ruling Workers' Party, the South Korean daily said. The Feb. 27-28 summit in the Vietnamese capital ended abruptly amid differences over the scope of denuclearization measures North Korea would commit to taking in exchange for sanctions relief. The talks remain in a stalemate. SHANGHAI, May 16 -- North Korea has suffered its severest drought in 37 years, state-run media reported Wednesday, fanning fears about food shortage in the nation whose economy has been already sluggish amid international economic sanctions. "According to a meteorologist, the average precipitation of the country from January to early May was 54.4 mm (millimeters), 42.3 percent of the average annual precipitation," the Korean Central News Agency said. "It is the lowest figure since 1982" when the average precipitation in North Korea was 51.2 mm, the news agency said, adding, "The agricultural sector is directing efforts to securing water to prevent drought damage." The United Nations has estimated that more than 10 million North Koreans, or about 40 percent of the population, are undernourished. The country has faced food shortages due partly to natural disasters including floods and a failing food distribution policy in the past. North Korea's economy is also believed to be lackluster against a backdrop of economic sanctions aimed at preventing it from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. SEOUL, May 4 -- North Korea on Saturday fired a barrage of short-range missiles in the direction of the Sea of Japan, the Yonhap news agency reported citing South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Pyongyang "fired multiple rounds of unidentified missiles from its east coast town of Wonsan in the northeastern direction between 9:06 a.m. and 9:27 a.m. today," the JCS said in a release. The missiles flew for a range of about 70 km to 100 km. The Japanese government said these were not ballistic missiles and they did not reach the country’s exclusive economic zone. In April 2018, Pyongyang announced it was halting tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles of various range with the goal of developing the socialist economy and improving living conditions of its citizens. After that last May North Korea eliminated the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where six underground explosions had been conducted. Between 2016 and 2017, North Korea carried out nearly 40 ballistic missile launches. ROTTERDAM, April 18 -- South Korean giant says it respects intellectual property and is disappointed at certain media reports. Samsung Electronics has been dragged into the row surrounding intellectual property theft from Dutch chipmaker ASML. Earlier this month ASML admitted it suffered intellectual property theft in 2015, but it rejected a media report at the time that it had been struck by Chinese spies. Court documents in the US reportedly showed six former ASML employees, all with Chinese names, had breached their employment contract by sharing information on ASML software processes with a company called Xtal Inc. IP theft ASML is one of the world’s largest makers of microchip manufacturing equipment, and it said at the time that no “valuable” files had been accessed. But ASML latter admitted it had been robbed “by a handful of our own employees based in Silicon Valley, who had broken the law to enrich themselves.” ASML said staff at a company (Xtal) were found by a US jury to have misappropriated ASML’s confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets in 2015. Xtal filed for bankruptcy in December after losing the $223m (£171 million) judgement to ASML over the matter. But now Samsung has been dragged into the row, after ASML CEO Peter Wennink, who had initially denied some Dutch media reports that the Chinese government had been behind the theft, then went to state that funding for Xtal had come in part from China and in part from Korea, Reuters reported. Wennink reiterated the alleged Korean connection in a TV interview with Dutch broadcaster NOS on Tuesday this week. “What we have found evidence for is that the (secrets) were stolen by people of American and Chinese nationality with Chinese background,” he allegedly told NOS. “Those products were used to provide services to our largest Korean customer.” Samsung denial That last part has made Samsung very unhappy indeed, as Samsung is ASML’s largest South Korean customer and its largest customer overall. Samsung told Reuters in an emailed response that it was not involved in the industrial espionage. “Samsung makes it a top priority to protect and respect the intellectual property rights of others … No products that have resulted from our partnership with Xtal interfere with ASML’s intellectual property,” Samsung reportedly said. “We are deeply disappointed at media reports that had widely assumed or even suggested Samsung’s involvement in any wrongdoing against ASML, which are not true,” Samsung added. “While we cannot disclose details of our business deals, Samsung had made precautions so as to adhere to all laws and regulations with its development contract with Xtal, including a clause that specifically prohibits the illegal use of third-party IP,” Samsung reportedly said. |
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