South Korean shop owners are launching a nationwide boycott of Japanese products over a territorial dispute between the two countries.
The President of the Save Local Stores Alliances, Oh Ho-suk, claims most of the alliance's 7.2 million members will ultimately participate in the effort. They are pledging not to sell popular Japanese products like Mild Seven cigarettes, Asahi beer and Sony electronics. Some car mechanics are also saying they will refuse to repair cars from Japanese brands like Toyota, Honda and Nissan.
"We will continue this boycott until we get a sincere apology from the Japanese government," Oh says.
His group is angry over Japan's continuing claim to a series of islands that lie between the two countries. Seoul calls the islands Dokdo, Tokyo calls them Takeshima. Both countries claim them, but they are currently under South Korean control.
The dispute is the latest in a series of competing national claims to islands in the East and South China seas, where ownership can give exclusive rights to fishing, oil production and other commercial activities in surrounding waters.
Large Japanese exporters like Toyota and Canon suffered declining sales in China last fall when a separate island dispute between those two countries escalated into a major product boycott. Protests turned violent in September after the Japanese government purchased the island chain -- known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan -- from private Japanese owners.
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