China, S. Korea building up momentum to grow ties, bolster cooperation

SEOUL, May 27 (Xinhua) -- In fresh exchanges between their leaders, China and South Korea reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing mutual trust and expanding cooperation, a solid move to stabilize bilateral relations and ensure good neighborliness after years of twists and turns in bilateral ties.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday held separate meetings with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong in Seoul prior to Monday's ninth Trilateral Summit Meeting among China, Japan and South Korea.

The widely-anticipated meeting is believed to be an effective gathering to strengthen trilateral cooperation after the mechanism witnessed a hiatus of about four and a half years.

China and South Korea have made substantial progress in growing their relations over the past more than three decades, but shifts in South Korea's foreign policy and geopolitical tensions, among other factors, have brought their relationship into headwinds.

"The bilateral meeting between leaders of the two countries on the occasion of the trilateral meeting will help push China-South Korea relations back on track of stable development," said Dong Xiangrong, senior fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

During Li's meetings with Yoon and Lee, both sides depicted economic and trade cooperation as the "ballast of China-South Korea relations."

Describing the industrial and supply chains of China and South Korea as deeply intertwined, Li warned against turning economic and trade issues into political or security issues.

Maintaining stable and smooth industrial and supply chains of the two countries serves their own interests. In the semiconductor sector, for instance, despite pressures from the United States, China's industrial chain continues to benefit South Korean companies including Samsung.

Li called on the two neighbors to strengthen cooperation in high-end manufacturing, new energy, artificial intelligence, bio-medicine and other fields.

In this regard, an agreement to accelerate the second phase of the China-South Korea Free Trade Agreement negotiations is deemed an urgent and important task.

"Among the three countries, only China and South Korea have a bilateral free trade agreement -- this is a comparative advantage of China-South Korea relations," Dong said.

China introduced the negative-list approach for the first time for service trade and investment talks in the free trade agreement negotiation with South Korea, said the Chinese scholar, noting that if sealed, the deal may well lift their economic relations to a higher level.

To facilitate economic and trade cooperation, Li reiterated China's willingness to further ease market access and provide better service for foreign investment.

He welcomed more investment and greater cooperation in China in his meeting with the Samsung chief, hailing cooperation with Samsung as "a vivid epitome of the mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation and development between China and South Korea."

The meeting with Lee "has important significance," said Dong. "It demonstrates that China highly values South Korean companies and is willing to create a sound environment for them to invest and operate in China."

Close cooperation between the two East Asian neighbors not only benefits themselves, but also contributes to global peace and prosperity. The two sides agreed to maintain high-level exchanges and close communication at all levels, make good use of the existing dialogue and cooperation mechanisms, and restart youth exchanges, among others.

Dong said that cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and South Korea have been extensive and marked by strong friendship for many years.

"It is necessary to better facilitate people-to-people exchanges in the future, and translate geographical and cultural affinity into closeness and friendship between the two peoples," she said.