TOKYO –
A joint venture formed in 2019 by a top Japanese company and a top South Korean company has been hailed as a beacon of cooperation amid strained diplomatic ties.
Executives from South Korea’s Naver and Japan’s SoftBank Group said they would jointly manage Line, a South Korean-developed messaging app popular in Japan. They gave the project a code name that emphasized collaboration: Gaia.
Five years later, Japan and South Korea have made significant progress in easing long-standing historical tensions. But disagreement has emerged over ownership of the Naver-SoftBank project, and diplomats and international relations experts fear it could once again strain ties between the countries.
