Neighborly assistance [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

2012 marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak ended his sixth visit to China on Jan. 11 after he took office as president in 2008. During his stay, the two countries issued a joint communiqué.

It is worth noting that the communiqué said, "The two sides share the view that a free trade agreement between China and South Korea will provide a better policy environment for bilateral economic and trade cooperation, and serves the interests of both sides. The two sides agree to launch negotiations for the China-South Korea free trade area as soon as South Korea is ready."

The bilateral free trade area is a strategic measure to strengthen the strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries, to improve their ability to cope with crises, to promote the sustainable development of the Chinese, South Korean, and East Asian economies, and to benefit the people of the two countries and entire East Asia.

First, the China-South Korea free trade area will be crucial to achieving the goal established in the joint communiqué of increasing bilateral trade volume to 300 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. Their trade volume reached 220 billion U.S. dollars last year, and it was quite an achievement for South Korea, whose territory is only 1 percent of that of the United States.

China is already South Korea's largest trading partner. In order to increase their annual trade volume by 50 percent to 300 billion U.S. dollars, the two countries must make great efforts to promote trade and investment liberalization, and the most effective way is establishing a free trade area.

Second, establishing the free trade zone is out of China and South Korea's needs of safeguarding their interests in economic cooperation of the Asia-Pacifica Region and sticking to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) mode.

At the informal APEC leaders' meeting held not a long ago, the United States made great efforts to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which has high standards for joining and is highly mechanized.

The TPP proposed and led by the Untied States is actually aimed at building up an Asia-Pacific Region according to the United States' standards. It denies the diversification reality of the region and the APEC mode and counteracts the APEC.

Many developing countries in the APEC cannot tolerate such cooperation rules. There are also strong opinions calling for protecting domestic agricultural products in South Korea and Japan, regarding the TPP as a “treasonable treaty”.

Under this condition, if China and South Korea reach a free trade agreement reflecting the APEC mode, they will be able to maintain the APEC mode and establish a legal case for East Asian economies to safeguard their interests in TPP negotiations.

Third, the success of the negotiation on the China and South Korea Free Trade Zone will promote the harder negotiation on the China, Japan and South Korea Free Trade Zone to reach an agreement earlier. In this way, we will be able to see an open, comprehensive and complete East Asia cooperation framework, which takes the 10+1 as the foundation, takes the 10+3 as the main part and takes the East Asia Summit as an important supplementary measure.

This framework will promote the East Asia cooperation gradually and promote the cross-Pacific (Pacific Rim) trade and investment liberalization cooperation of the APEC. By adhering to the principles of the development, cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win result, the framework and all the cooperation partners will jointly realize the peace, stability and prosperity of the East Asia and the Pacific Rim. And the China and South Korea Free Trade Zone will turn into a new strong impetus for this historical course, especially for East Asia cooperation.

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