Seo Hyeong-hun enjoys a cold one as much as the next engineering student.

Key points: The boycott movement has seen imports of Japanese beer plunge by 97 per cent

The boycott movement has seen imports of Japanese beer plunge by 97 per cent It is also hitting Japanese cars, fashion brands and tourism

It is also hitting Japanese cars, fashion brands and tourism The trade spat is rooted in a bitter colonial history of sexual slavery

But for months he's been turning his nose up at beers of a certain stripe — namely, Japanese brews.

Protester Seo Hyeong-hun has given up Japanese beer. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

It's a grassroots response to an ongoing trade spat between South Korea and Japan, and one that's steeped in a bitter colonial history of sexual slavery.

Mr Seo says rejecting a bottle of Asahi or Sapporo is about taking a necessary stance against Japan.

"Someday, when the Japanese stop their imperialism … I might be able to have this beer again," he said.

But it's not just beverages in the firing line — since July, protesters have been shunning Japanese food, clothing, cars and tourism.

Fellow protester Hong Se-ah told the ABC she was preparing to camp out on a warm late-September Seoul night.

It's a tent embassy of sorts, stationed next to a copper-coloured statue of a young "comfort woman" — a euphemism for women and girls used as sexual slaves under Japanese rule during World War II.

The Japanese embassy reportedly wants the comfort woman statue removed. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Activists have slept next to the statue, guarding it, for more than 1,370 nights — and counting.

The group's cause — protecting the statue that the Japanese embassy reportedly wants removed — has overlapped with the boycott movement.

Hong Se-ah camped out next to the comfort woman statue to ensure it was not removed. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

But with histories so deeply entwined, there are contradictions within the long-simmering boycott movement.

Beer sales plummet

According to figures from the Korea Customs Service, Korean imports of Japanese beer plunged by 97 per cent in August compared to last year, the Maeil Business Newspaper reported.

Japan was the largest source of imported beer in Korea for the past 10 years — now they're ranked 13th.

Some protesters have taken to placing boycott stickers on menus at bars and restaurants. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Japanese cars are taking a hit too — news agency Yonhap reported that sales from Honda, Toyota and Nissan sank by 74 per cent, citing Korean auto industry group figures.

A Toyota spokesperson told the ABC the decrease in sales was "partly affected" by the boycott movement, adding their total sales had dropped by 35 per cent last month compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, footage of a Korean man bashing his Lexus (a luxury car manufactured by Toyota) went viral.

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At convenience stores across the country, Japanese brands are notably absent from fridges otherwise well-stocked with foreign beverages.

In Busan at one GS25 corner store — South Korea's top convenience chain — employee Kim Sung-jin told the ABC the store had pulled Japanese beers from the shelves as part of the boycott.

Customers aren't buying them, Mr Kim said, and he risked losing customers if he stocked them.

It's not impossible to buy a bottle of Asahi — in one Seoul establishment, there was as small "recommended" note scrawled next to the brew on the menu.

But the bartender said the brand wasn't served on tap anymore — she knows a large number of patrons won't be buying it.

One Japanese restaurant in Gwangju, in the country's south-west, offers an incongruous sight: a large tree, laden with pink cherry blossoms, looms large next to a "No Japan" boycott poster.

This Japanese restaurant has suffered a 40 per cent drop in business since the protests began. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Restaurant owner Kim Yong-min is at pains to point out that while the cuisine is Japanese, he supports the boycott and is "100 per cent Korean".

"We lost about 40 percent of our sales because of the boycott of Japan," he said.

"Japan thought Korea was a county that belongs to it — the boycott is because of the sexual slavery problem and trade with Japan."

In light of the protests, he wishes he could change the type of food he serves.

How did we get here?

The boycott is a response to an escalating trade dispute rooted in South Korea and Japan's bitter past, and it's one that could have global implications for the tech industry.

A South Korean court last year ordered Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean victims of forced labour in munitions factories during World War II, but Japan maintains that the issue was long ago resolved in a controversial 1965 treaty.

Beyond trade, the dispute has also affected intelligence-sharing arrangements between Japan and South Korea. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

In response, Japan put export controls on chemicals vital to South Korea's semiconductor industry, and both countries stripped each other of preferential trading status.

"The decision was based on their anger, their frustration with the Korean Supreme Court's decision on forced labour," said Lee Jae-hyon, an analyst with the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

But he said efforts to exert political pressure were counterproductive.

"It doesn't really make sense. I mean, if the issue was still in the political area, then maybe the Korean Government can do something … but the executive cannot do anything about it.

"If we did, that means that the South Korean Government is undermining the independence of the Supreme Court."

Then, South Korea announced it would be withdrawing from an intelligence-sharing pact with Japan — a move set to take effect next week.

Dr Lee said the most important part of this deal centred on three nations — South Korea, Japan and the United States — sharing information about North Korean missiles.

"Because the globe is round, Japan cannot detect the initial stage of the missile. Only South Korea can detect the initial stage of the missile," Dr Lee said.

The scrapped intelligence sharing pact was designed to detect North Korean missiles. ( Reuters: KCNA )

Dismantling the deal marks a worrying escalation, according to former South Korean lieutenant-general Chun In-bum.

"It started as an economic social issue, now it's gone into the security arena. North Korea is threatening all of us," he said.

"The whole system might become unravelled."

He said people were pinning their hopes on a diplomatic visit related to Japanese Emperor Naruhito's coronation, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon — the first such meeting since the trade spat began.

But nationalist domestic politics plays a role, too.

"I think everybody wants to wind back, but they can't," Mr Chun said.

"What would their support base do?"

Uniqlo falling out of fashion

University student Bang Seulkichan stands with a banner reading: "Colonial rule 80 years ago — we remember!" ( Reuters: Heo Ran )

Japanese clothing giant Uniqlo is one of the main targets of the boycott, which has heightened in ferocity after the company's chief financial officer said the freeze "wouldn't last long".

Then this week, the company came under fire again after airing a controversial ad.

It features a 13-year-old designer asking the 98-year-old American fashion icon Iris Apfel what she wore when she was her age.

In English, Ms Apfel responds: "I can't remember that far back" — but in Korean, it's translated as: "How can I remember things that happened more than 80 years ago?"

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Korean consumers saw that as a thinly-veiled jibe at their reluctance to let the comfort women issue rest.

Gary Conway, a spokesperson from Fast Retailing in Japan, which owns Uniqlo, said: "Japan Global HQ learned that this particular asset caused concern from Korean customers, and therefore Uniqlo Korea stopped using it."

Responding to media reports of store closures, he said "no Uniqlo stores have been closed in South Korea in relation to the recent boycott of Japanese brands."

There's a certain irony to the Uniqlo blockade — locally, the company is 49 per cent owned by the South Korean company Lotte.

Japanese beers like Asahi have been pulled off the shelves all over South Korea. ( Reuters: Toru Hanai )

Australian Chamber of Commerce in Korea executive director Rowan Petz said the once-chaotic Uniqlo stores of Seoul were now often eerily empty.

"In the end, the losers are normally Korean workers. These trade wars have a real impact on the everyday mums and dads, students who are just trying to get by," he said.

"The big business can normally [bear the] brunt of economic downturns over several months or even years. But you can't say the same if there are local staff members being let go, or their hours have been reduced due to low demand."

'You are a betrayer'

Lee Eunbee says she can't travel to Japan, because her friends and family would not approve. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

The boycott has also impacted tourism — Lee Eunbee, who works for a travel agency in Seoul, said that many South Koreans were cancelling their holidays to Japan.

"The Japanese tour program is one of our bestsellers, but more than 60 per cent of my clients cancelled the tour," she said.

Ms Lee, an avid traveller herself, said she's feeling the pressure from friends and family to join the boycott too.

"I really want to go to Japan because I really like Japanese food," she said with a laugh.

"But I cannot go. When I tell my friends that I want to go to Japan, they tell me: 'You are a betrayer.' So most Koreans feel like that."

She said Japanese and Korean politicians were creating problems that caused damage to ordinary citizens.

"We have a very sad history, but I think Japanese politicians don't try to solve that problem.

"They just pay the big money, but they didn't apologise for that. And then they really tried to hide the past.

"The women are very old, most of them passed away. So before they all pass away, they have to solve the problem."

Even though the dispute stems from decades-old crimes, young people have led the protests. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

The Japanese embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to the ABC's requests for comment by deadline.

For Mr Seo, the protester, young people have galvanised the boycott movement, despite these events happening long before they were born.

"In the minds of Korean people, the anti-Japanese imperialism mindset is widespread, I guess because the Japanese imperialism was so evil, and secondly, the history is not solved," he said.

"That history is not finished yet."

Erin Handley was in South Korea for the Walkley Foundation Australia-Korea media exchange program.