You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saker. My guest today is South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyeong- Wai, the first South Korean woman to hold the post.

She has long experience as a senior UN diplomat, but now her focus is on defending South Korean interests in an extremely challenging regional environment.

First, there's the uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration's strategic approach to the Korean peninsula. The U.S. President's ambitious pursuit of a grand bargain to rid North Korea of its nuclear arsenal appears to have stalled. And yet, Donald Trump still speaks of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as a friend.

At the same time, Washington appears to be losing patience with the cost of its military support for South Korea.

And Seoul has another huge headache, a bitter trade dispute with Japan which threatens the South Korean economy

and a key strategic alliance. So, is South Korea entering a new era of vulnerability? Well,

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wa joins me now on the line from Beijing. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you very much for having me.

Foreign Minister, I think we have to start, because you are in Beijing and you've had meetings

with both the Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers, we have to start with your very troubled

relationship with Japan. I'm going to quote to you the words of a Financial Times

newspaper editorial. They say, the world's been fixated on Donald Trump's tariffs on China,

but a new trade war is emerging in Asia, this time between Japan and South Korea. Is that the way

you see it? You know, I've seen that article, and I have to say that this issue over trade with Japan

has come quite unexpectedly, and I have to say in a very unilateral and arbitrary manner on

the part of Japan. We are prepared to discuss what the issue is and keep this as a trade issue, but I think the steps that they have taken has caused a great deal of problems for our industries. And I think, you know, we want very much to engage with them in the consultation so that we can take things back to pre-July 1 when they had taken these steps.

But if I may say so, it's not clear to me that you really want to lower the temperature because the Chinese foreign minister said to you both, that is to yourself and to the Japanese

foreign minister, please resolve this issue quickly, get a dialogue going, lower the temperature,

and you in the same news conference chose to say, and I'm quoting you, it is important to eliminate

unilateral and arbitrary trade retaliatory steps,

which was clearly a jab at your Japanese counterpart. So you're not really trying to sort this out.

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