A reconsideration of Sino-Korean trade relations and cooperation in the post-epidemic era

Abstract

2021 marks the 29th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea. During the nearly 30 years of cooperation, they have gone from “friendly and cooperative relations” to “comprehensive cooperative partnership” and then to “strategic cooperative partnership”. Although there has been some disagreement during this period, the relations between the two countries are generally positive. Benefit from the favorable political relationship development, they have achieved good results in economic cooperation. The bilateral trade volume between China and South Korea increased rapidly from 6.38 billion U.S. dollars in 1992 to 300 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, nearly 50 times higher. Currently, China is South Korea’s largest trading partner; on the contrary, South Korea is China’s third-largest trading partner. Due to the different stages of economic development between the two countries, their economies were highly complementary, which led to rapid bilateral trade growth and a gradual formation of a comprehensive and reciprocal trade cooperation situation. China and South Korea signed a free trade agreement in 2015. It is the agreement that China has signed with another country involving the most significant trade volume and the broadest scope of topics so far. It is a mutually beneficial and win-win agreement for both countries.<BR> However, its role in promoting trade development is not as expected. Reasons include the deployment of the “THAAD” anti-missile system by South Korea, which has harmed political relations between the two countries, and the impact from COVID-19. Moreover, the fact that the two sides have changed from complementary relationship to convergent relationship in the industrial chain has also slowed down the growth of bilateral trade. Therefore, it is necessary for us to summarize the history of trade development between China and South Korea to find out the existing problems and indicate the direction of trade cooperation between the two countries in the post-epidemic era.