China-proposed initiatives bring S. Korea closer to economic vision

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) holds talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea (ROK), Oct 31, 2015.[Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - 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.