Yasugi City, Shimane Prefecture, and Miryang City, South Gyeongsang Province (South Korea), formed sister government ties in October, 1990, and made extensive efforts on developing friendly relations with each other. However, the interexchange was interrupted, because the Japan-South Korea relation had deteriorated after the establishment of the "Takeshima Day" Ordinance by Shimane Prefectural Assembly in 2005. After the interruption, the mayor of Yasugi visited South Korea in a personal capacity, and showed his desire to resume the interexchange to the mayor of Miryang in May, 2006. As a result, the interexchange resumed.
The subject of this research is to clarify the process of resuming the interexchange between Yasugi City and Miryang City, and also to describe the situation after the program resumed during confrontations between Japan and South Korea. Although continuing the interexchange became difficult again in 2008, because of Japanese and South Korean provocations regarding Takeshima, an unstable interexchange has continued until now (2015). The interexchange was continued thanks to positive efforts of the mayors. However, when the mayors changed, continuation of the interexchange was threatened. The conclusion of this case study is that it is not easy to build a foundation for interexchange programs during confrontation between nations.