Tsingtao urination video turns South Koreans back to Japanese brews
Japanese beer exports to South Korea soared in 2023, resulting in the country regained top exporter slot from China after five years, according to data from South Korea’s customs department released on 14 January 2024. Japanese beer exports to South Korea in 2023 topped US$55.5 million in value, jumping from US$14.5 million in 2022.
The rapid resurgence of Japanese beer in South Korea is in part due to the steady warming of trade relations between the two countries, and also the collapse in Chinese imports following the video of a Chinese worker urinating in a beer tank at the Tsingtao Brewery that went viral in October last year.
Japanese beer imports had previously ranked first in 2018 at US$78.3 million; but then declined rapidly to US$39.7 million in 2019; US$5.7 million in 2020; and US$6.9 million in 2021. In 2019, relations between the two nations had turned frosty following Japan’s restrictions on exports to South Korea of key industrial materials for the production of semiconductors and displays.
This resulted in an informal boycott of Japanese goods in South Korea. Japan also removed South Korea from its ‘white list’ of countries given preferential treatment in trade procedures.
By 2023, however, trade relations between Seoul and Tokyo improved following President Yoon Suk Yeol offer to resolve the historical forced labour issue and compensate South Korean victims without asking for contributions from Japan. Japan also reinstated the country on its white list of trading partners after its removal in 2019.
In contrast, beer imports from China only ranked third in 2023 at US$30.1 million, down from the previous year’s top ranking at US$36.4 million. The fall in imports was largely due to a video showing a uniformed man climbing over a wall and urinating into a Tsingtao beer tank that went viral in South Korea in October past year.
Tsingtao tried to reassure the public that the batch of malt affected had been sealed off from use. South Korea’s Tsingtao beer importer also claimed that the plant in the video was producing beer for only local consumption in the Chinese market, but the impact on sales was immediate and severe.
In October 2023, beer imports by volume from China fell 43% year-on-year to 2,281 tons, and Chinese beer purchases by value declined 38% to US$1.93 million, according to the Korea Customs Service.
In contrast, over the same period beer imports by volume from Japan soared 302% year-on-year to 7,243 tons and by value 377% to US$6.14 million for the month.
