{"id":106875,"date":"2026-08-02T11:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T11:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/106875\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T11:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T11:25:11","slug":"koreas-chip-boom-calls-for-humility-not-hubris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/106875\/","title":{"rendered":"Korea’s Chip Boom Calls for Humility, Not Hubris"},"content":{"rendered":"

“This is no time to be intoxicated by the celebratory toast over semiconductors. There is no guarantee that a ‘semiconductor version of the Plaza Accord’ will not emerge.”<\/p>\n

A senior financial industry official I met recently said he was concerned about excessive optimism toward the semiconductor economy. He worried that figures difficult to even grasp \u2014 such as “4,755 trillion won in investment by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, and an additional 100 trillion won in tax revenue next year” \u2014 are being perceived as a settled future, and that only rosy growth forecasts premised on a semiconductor boom are being put forward.<\/p>\n

Above all, he said the United States and others would not simply stand by and watch Korea monopolize the semiconductor boom. He pointed to Japan’s case some 40 years ago.<\/p>\n

Indeed, when Japanese companies swept the global semiconductor market in the 1980s and the United States lost competitiveness, the U.S. government pushed through the Plaza Accord, which induced an appreciation of the yen, and the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, the price competitiveness of Japanese DRAM deteriorated, and Japanese companies such as NEC and Toshiba lost their global semiconductor dominance. While one cannot flatly conclude that the decline of Japan’s semiconductor industry was due to the United States, it is an undeniable fact that Washington actively used trade pressure to protect its own industry.<\/p>\n

This is why Korean companies cannot simply feel reassured about leading the current semiconductor supercycle. If the influence of Korean companies in the global market grows further and their competitive structure with U.S. companies intensifies, the possibility of new trade norms, industrial policies, or demands to restructure supply chains cannot be ruled out. Whether it will be a “semiconductor version of the Plaza Accord” or policy pressure of another kind is uncertain. But it is clear that this is an era in which the more advanced an industry, the more it is subject to both diplomacy and trade.<\/p>\n

“The more we boast that Korea’s semiconductor economy is at a record high, the more we can become a direct target of the U.S. government,” he said. “Especially considering the unpredictability of the Donald Trump administration, it is a very complacent and dangerous attitude for the Korean government to step forward and flaunt its achievements.”<\/p>\n

He has a point. The more one shows off, the more the other side’s resentment and wariness are bound to grow. As Korean semiconductors take flight, the United States could raise tariffs or apply pressure in other areas, such as increased defense cost-sharing, and this could cause Korea to lose its negotiating leverage in trade.<\/p>\n

Rather than becoming intoxicated by short-term achievements, the government should quietly lay the groundwork so that our companies are not isolated amid unprecedented global uncertainty, and focus on serving as a sturdy breakwater. There is a counterargument that if the United States regulates Korean semiconductors, China would reap the benefits, so Washington would not easily resort to pressure. But international trade is an unpredictable domain. The government must concentrate its capabilities on assuming the worst and building the ability to withstand any scenario.<\/p>\n

Risks always reveal themselves in the midst of a boom. This is a time that calls for a government that quietly provides support so that Korea does not lose its dominance in the global market even after the boom ends.<\/p>\n

\"null<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“This is no time to be intoxicated by the celebratory toast over semiconductors. There is no guarantee that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24010,55129,10734,55127,276,112,275,3190,55128],"class_list":["post-106875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seoul","tag-chip-supercycle","tag-japan-semiconductor-decline","tag-korea-semiconductor-boom","tag-plaza-accord","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-seoul","tag-sk-hynix","tag-trump-administration","tag-u-s-trade-pressure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}