Yonhap News Agency recently reported that at the 17th Korea-China Economic Ministers' Video Conference, China and South Korea agreed for the first time to deepen supply chain cooperation and agreed to expand carbon-neutral and policy exchanges to promote economic cooperation. The two countries' participants commemorated the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and China and spoke highly of the achievements of economic exchanges between the two countries, the report said.

　　South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo website reported that China and South Korea have established mutually beneficial relations over the past 30 years. The two countries have achieved dazzling results in terms of personnel exchanges and economic and trade cooperation. Technology, investment and development experience from South Korea have played a role in China's development into an economic power, and the Chinese market is essential for South Korea's continued development and eventual entry into the developed world.

　　Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported that trade between China and South Korea has continued to expand over the past 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The report points out that South Korea has concentrated investment in places such as China's Shandong Province, which is geographically close, and Korean companies in fields such as electrical appliances and automobiles have actively entered the Chinese market, and South Korean semiconductors are mainly exported to China.

　　According to data released by China's General Administration of Customs, bilateral trade between China and South Korea exceeded $360 billion in 2021, 72 times more than in 1992, the year diplomatic relations were established. China has been Korea's top trading partner for 18 consecutive years. According to Korean statistics, the cumulative direct and indirect mutual investment between Korea and China has reached US$250 billion; Korea's exports to China will account for more than a quarter of its overall exports in 2021.

　　The fruitful economic and trade cooperation between China and South Korea fully reflects that the two countries are not only permanent neighbors that cannot be moved away, but also inseparable partners. In terms of economic complementarity, over the years, China's huge market, cheap labor and preferential tax policies have been effectively combined with Korea's capital and technological advantages, providing the impetus for the rapid increase of China-Korea trade volume. In terms of institutional dividends, China and South Korea signed a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in 2015 and have made eight tariff cuts so far, with the proportion of tariff lines in which China has implemented zero tariffs on goods originating from South Korea exceeding 40%. The FTA between China and South Korea is a milestone in the history of economic and trade relations between the two countries, which has not only driven significant growth in bilateral trade and investment, promoted employment and economic revitalization in both countries, but also played a positive role in further strengthening economic and trade relations between the two countries and even bilateral relations in multiple fields.

　　On January 1 this year, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) came into force. Compared with bilateral FTAs, RCEP makes new norms in areas such as regional cumulative principles of origin, intellectual property rights and e-commerce, and takes institutional opening to a new level, promoting the formation of closer industrial, supply and value chains in the Asian region. As RCEP member countries, China and South Korea have a broader space for cooperation in the field of trade and economy. In the first half of this year, against the backdrop of repeated delays in the Newcastle pneumonia epidemic, ongoing geopolitical conflicts and fragile global economic recovery, bilateral trade between China and South Korea bucked the trend and reached US$184.25 billion, up 9.4% year-on-year, demonstrating resilience and potential.

　　It is worth noting that South Korea's trade with China has been in deficit for three consecutive months in May, June and July this year. In the nearly 30 years prior to this, South Korea had maintained a surplus in trade with China on a monthly basis. This reflects some new changes in the economic and trade relations between China and South Korea. In the past, a typical feature of the division of labor between China and South Korea was that South Korea exported intermediate products such as parts and components to China, which were then processed into finished products and sold to overseas markets. Nowadays, with the improvement of China's manufacturing industry and the upgrading of its industrial structure, China has higher requirements for Korean products exported to China. High-value-added and high-tech products from Korea are more popular in the Chinese market. Cooperation in the field of high precision technology has relatively increased in the trade between China and Korea, and processing trade has decreased. In this situation, there are also many voices in Korea suggesting the government to take necessary initiatives to explore high value-added export products and strengthen the competitiveness of exports to China, etc.

　　In recent times, according to the relevant provisions of the FTA between China and South Korea, the two countries have launched the second phase of FTA negotiations to conduct high-level service trade and investment liberalization consultations in the negative list mode. South Korea has also recently revealed that the two countries have agreed to establish a new high-level consultation body to enhance cooperation and communication in the supply chain. These new trends release positive signals and show the new weather of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries. On the one hand, most of the 2015 FTAs between China and South Korea focused on trade in goods and commodity circulation, while the second phase of negotiations paid more attention to issues such as trade in services and investment liberalization, with a higher level of bilateral opening and cooperation. On the other hand, at a time when the supply chains of regional and global industrial chains are relatively fragile, China and South Korea are focusing on supply chain security issues for the benefit of both sides and as a counter to the so-called "decoupling" and "chain breaking" rhetoric.

　　At present, the world is entering a new period of turbulence and change, economic globalization is encountering counter currents, global governance is in trouble, and individual countries are building closed and exclusive economic and trade "small circles" in the Asia-Pacific region, which has a negative impact on the overall situation of Asia-Pacific economic and trade cooperation. But no matter how the situation changes, the fundamentals of complementary and mutually beneficial economic and trade relations between China and South Korea remain unchanged. China-Korea economic and trade cooperation has a solid historical foundation and strong endogenous dynamics, forming a more stable institutional mechanism, as well as the resilience to withstand external risk shocks. There are reasons to believe that China-Korea economic and trade cooperation has a broad prospect and a promising future.