Why the claim that "Korea would be in deficit without semiconductors" is ridiculous

Whenever the Korean economy is discussed, a certain argument always comes up.
It is a logic used by Japan-enthusiasts when claiming that Korea has surpassed Japan's exports:
"If you exclude semiconductors, the trade balance is in deficit."
But there is a reason why this statement is ridiculous.
While they completely exclude semiconductor exports, they leave the imports of equipment, materials, and components used to manufacture those semiconductors untouched.
They import lithography equipment, wafers, various materials, parts, and intermediate goods.
If we were truly assuming the semiconductor industry didn't exist, wouldn't it be normal for these imports to decrease as well?
However, the calculation is very simple.
Delete only semiconductor exports.
Keep related imports as they are.
And then,
"See? Korea is in deficit without semiconductors."
They reach this conclusion.
If you use this method, you could manipulate the numbers for any country by excluding its flagship industry.
Yet, when comparing with Japan, the standards suddenly change.
They talk about Japan as if it is incredibly great because its primary income earned from overseas is large,
but that money does not all flow into Japan itself.
Profits earned by overseas subsidiaries that are kept locally or reinvested abroad are also captured in Japan's overseas income statistics.
I understand the reasoning; they don't bring it back to Japan so that it can continue to generate money.
In other words, while it is technically money earned by Japan on paper, the actual amount flowing into the Japanese mainland to stimulate domestic demand is much smaller than it seems.
But this is how the comparison is made:
For Korea, we must look at the numbers after excluding semiconductors, which is what they do best,
but for Japan, even the profits remaining overseas are counted as part of Japan's strength.
It is a very convenient comparison.
Exclude Korea's strengths,
maximize Japan's strengths.
And then,
"Korea only has semiconductors, while Japan is truly robust."
Of course, it is true that Korea has a high dependency on semiconductors.
But the reason we shouldn't exclude them isn't because semiconductors are a weakness, but because semiconductors are one of the industries Korea does best in the world, which is what creates the trade surplus.
What if we calculated Japan's figures excluding automobiles?
What if we looked only at the overseas investment income that was actually remitted to Japan?
I'm sure then they would say,
"That is also part of Japan's competitiveness, so why exclude it?"
Exactly.
Because it is a competitive advantage, it should not be excluded.
That is why the claim that "Korea would be in deficit without semiconductors" is ridiculous.
Because they evaluate Korea by subtracting what it does best,
while they evaluate Japan by including everything it does best to the maximum.
That isn't a comparison; it's just deciding on a conclusion first and then adjusting the numbers to fit it.