The conclusion of a free trade agreement (FTA) between South Korea and China marks a big step forward in bilateral economic and diplomatic relations that are entangled with the North Korean issue, experts said Monday.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, announced the effective conclusion of the FTA during their summit held on the sidelines of an annual meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Beijing earlier in the day.
Over the coming weeks, the two countries are to iron out technical issues and wording of the pact before formally signing the trade deal next year.
Experts hailed South Korea's FTA with the world's second-biggest economy, saying it will dramatically upgrade their bilateral diplomatic relationship forged in 1992.
Since establishing the diplomatic ties, brisk trading has been the most powerful driving force in tightening the two countries' relations.
Over the past two decades, China has emerged as South Korea's biggest trading partner while South Korea has become the third-biggest trading country for China.
Annual bilateral trading volume reached US$228.9 billion as of last year, more than the combined trading volume of South Korea with the United States and Japan, the second- and third-biggest trading partners.
The upcoming bilateral trade deal, meant to bring down tariffs and other trading barriers, will further upgrade the South Korea-China economic ties, which will in turn contribute to boosting the neighbors' cooperation in more sensitive areas such as politics and diplomacy, especially over North Korean issues, experts said.
"A successful signing of the FTA can bring the South Korea-China relations one level further into an economic partnership," said Kim Han-kwon, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
"The FTA signing is meaningful because it could help the countries (quell) potential distrust in the field of security by strengthening their economic partnership, allowing the countries to be able to keep their ties solid," Kim noted, adding that closer economic ties will go hand in hand with closer security ties.
Experts also highlighted that the landmark progress in the South Korea-China relationship also comes against the backdrop of major changes in the landscape of Asia-Pacific security.
China is increasingly distancing itself from its traditional ally, North Korea, amid the North's deepening isolation from the international community while the China-U.S. rivalry in the Asian region has become more pronounced of late.
The U.S., on its part, may not be visibly opposing Seoul's tighter economic ties with China, but South Korea needs to upgrade its alliance with the U.S. in parallel with its tightening relations with China, said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
"There's a need to maintain the South Korea-U.S. alliance more clearly because the way of managing the alliance may determine to whom (South Korea) puts more benefits," Kim noted. (Yonhap)
