I have to wonder if this is an attempt by competing Korean retailers to shutdown a foreign competitor? There are plenty of shopping areas in Korea with horrible traffic:
Swedish furniture retailer IKEA faces a business suspension here because of severe traffic congestion on roads surrounding its first mall, in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province.
The municipal city recently demanded IKEA to come up with a “dramatic breakthrough” by Wednesday, or the mall would be shut from Jan. 15.
The mall has operated since Dec. 18 under temporary approval. Gwangmyeong officials said there were no legal problems to withdrawing approval.
“People’s frustration caused by the congestion has reached boiling point,” said an official familiar with the case. “Not only drivers but also people living or working near the outlet are affected.” [Korea Times]
It sounds like that someone in marketing over at IKEA wasn’t doing their job very well by not looking to avoid controversy with hot button issues such as this before their grand opening in Korea:
Seen is IKEA’s decorative world map identifying the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the “Sea of Japan,” not the “East Sea.” The company said the map was made based on Google Maps. / Captured from IKEA’s homepage
Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, which will open here for business next month, has already become a focus of controversy because of decorative world maps in its product range that identify the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the “Sea of Japan,” not the “East Sea.”
IKEA Korea said Tuesday that the maps, currently available at some of the company’s overseas outlets, won’t be shipped into Korea. The Korean unit of the international furniture retailer said the product was made based on Google Maps.
Korea and Japan have wrangled for decades over what to name the waters between the two countries.
“We are sorry for causing controversy,” IKEA Korea said in a statement. “We are fully aware of the seriousness of this case for the Korean people.”
The company said that the map in question had already been excluded from a list of products to be imported to Korea. But it didn’t suggest any solution such as replacing Sea of Japan with East Sea or including both names on the map. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I hope they scrubbed their website and promotional products to make sure that their is no reference to Takeshima as well.
