As Chinese Premier Li Keqiang tries to inject new impetus into China-South Korea cooperation in his ongoing visit to Seoul, the two neighbors have become more steadfast in deepening their cooperation and further integrating their development strategies. Championed by a free trade agreement (FTA) and South Korea's joining of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), decades of smooth and fruitful economic cooperation have justified the high complementarity between the two economies and the capacity of Chinese initiatives to lead or drive development in other regions, such as the AIIB and the Belt and Road initiative.
Experts believed that based on China's multidimensional economic diplomacy and the significant volume of the Chinese market, China-proposed initiatives will continue to also benefit the regions as a whole, such as South Korea, whose active participation in those initiatives guarantees its leading position in reaping those benefits, thus bringing it closer to its own economic vision.
WIN-WIN, EQUITY-ORIENTED INITIATIVES
South Korea seemed to have joined all China-led global projects for economic integration, including the AIIB as well as the bilateral FTA, to keep pace with the Chinese economy, one of the world's fastest growing economies, Han Jae-jin, senior research fellow at the Hyundai Research Institute, told Xinhua. Experts said that the attractiveness and popularity of China-proposed initiatives mainly stem from their equity and win-win nature. Despite being surrounded by the largest number of neighbors in the world's most diversified and complicated geopolitical landscape, China maintains a good-neighborly foreign policy and a multidimensional economic diplomacy that eyes better integration of development strategies with its neighbors and the world.
Taking the AIIB and the Belt and Road initiative as examples: Chinese President Xi Jinping said in March that the Belt and Road and the AIIB are both open initiatives. China welcomes all countries along the routes and in Asia, as well as friends and partners around the world, to actively participate in these endeavors. "China is working hard to facilitate the economic stabilization in Asia and the Pacific, as well as in the world, and has actively participated in the global governance and the building of an open world economy," Zhuo Shaojie, deputy director of the Chinese Study Center at the University of Melbourne, said. Due to China's good-neighborly foreign policy and multidimensional economic diplomacy, China-proposed initiatives have been warmly welcomed by the region and the whole world. Through those initiatives, China is gradually docking its development strategy with those of its neighbors, paving the way for common development in East Asia.
INJECTING IMPETUS INTO S. KOREAN ECONOMY
The lackluster recovery of the global economy has dampened the growing momentum of South Korea's economy and blunted its competitive advantages in fields like steel, fiber-making and electronic products, as it heavily relies on exports. Joining China-proposed initiatives like the Belt and Road would help South Korea regain its advantages in infrastructure and machinery, expand its overseas projects and exports of machinery, and stimulate its economic growth, experts said.
By strengthening its ties with countries alongside the silk routes, South Korea can expand its overseas markets and boost its domestic market, said Yao Shumei, a researcher with the academic committee of China's National Development and Reform Commission. "It can also seize the opportunities to map out industrial linkage and obtain long-term benefits from its foreign direct investment (to countries along the routes)," the researcher said. Li Tianguo, a researcher with the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, fully agreed, saying China's "Belt and Road" initiatives could help South Korea enhance its cooperation and exchanges with China and other neighboring countries. South Korea has also adopted a strategy of "going global" for its enterprises. Therefore, it is hoped in South Korea that China's Belt and Road initiative could offer more opportunities for Korean enterprises, he said.
Moreover, experts believed that South Korea, faced with its own increasing debts, hopes to solve its financing problem both domestically and abroad, obtain important information to enter third markets, and enhance its ties with China and its neighboring countries -- all through the AIIB. South Korea's active participation in the Belt and Road initiative and the operation of the AIIB are very important for boosting its sluggish economy, Li said.
Within the framework of Chinese initiatives, China and South Korea could boost their cooperation in such industries as green energy, environmental protection, new generation of information technology, bio-tech, high-end engineering machinery, renewable energy and green cars, Yao said. Having embarked on a fast track of development, China and South Korea's relationship would be further strengthened by Premier Li's visit, his first official visit to China's neighbor since becoming premier in 2013. With their increased overall cooperation, the two sides can expect China-proposed initiatives to play a bigger role in boosting South Korea's economy and realizing the country's economic vision.
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