YONHAP NEWS

(News Focus) Lee, Hu set new milestone in South Korea-China relations

   By Yoo Cheong-mo
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- The third summit meeting between President Lee Myung-bak and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, held in Seoul Monday, marked a new milestone in bilateral relations, as the leaders agreed on specific action plans to follow up on their countries' strategic cooperative partnership and reconfirmed their commitment to the peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear weapons dispute.

   A joint statement issued after the summit called for widening bilateral cooperation far beyond the traditional economic and commercial fields to include political and security affairs.

   The agreement to open the first high-level strategic dialogue between the two countries' foreign ministries and expand personnel exchanges between their defense officials drew particularly strong attention in light of China's unique relationship with North Korea, diplomatic experts here said.

   "The Lee-Hu agreement is expected to pave the way for advancing bilateral military relations in conformity with the strategic cooperative partnership," said a defense expert, speaking anonymously.

   "Regardless of the development of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, the Chinese government seems determined to enhance the security posture for the entire Korean Peninsula and China through the strengthening of bilateral defense cooperation with South Korea," said the expert.

   Against such a backdrop, said the expert, the latest Lee-Hu agreement is likely to lead to regular meetings between their defense ministers and military chiefs.

   In addition to the regular exchange visits of defense officials and diplomats, scholars in both countries are planning to launch various joint research projects to deepen the bilateral relationship.

   Lee and Hu failed to go into details of their effort to denuclearize North Korea, but reconfirmed their previous commitment for joint efforts to accelerate the ongoing denuclearization process through the six-party talks.

   "President Hu and I reaffirmed the principle that the two countries will help realize the denuclearization of North Korea through the six-party talks," Lee said at a joint press conference. "We agreed to step up efforts to help implement the second-phase measures required for fulfilling the September 19 Joint Statement. Upon completion of the second phase, we should be able to launch consultations as soon as possible to come up with action plans for the next phase."
South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan are members of the six-way forum negotiating the disablement, and ultimately dismantlement, of Pyongyang's atomic arsenal.

   In reply, Hu said that China wants the two Koreas to maintain momentum for reconciliation and cooperation, indicating that China will be ready to more actively play a mediating role in the nuclear dispute following its successful hosting of the Summer Olympics.

   Accordingly, China is expected to soon contact the U.S. and North Korea to persuade them to eliminate the remaining barriers to entering the third phase of the denuclearization agreement. In this regard, some diplomats in Seoul forecast that Hu may soon dispatch an envoy to Pyongyang to persuade the North Korean leadership to accept U.S. terms for resuming the six-party talks.

   Meanwhile, the Lee-Hu joint statement was heavily centered on economic and commercial cooperation, as they agreed to expand the annual two-way trade volume to US$200 billion by 2010 and actively push to open negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement.

   The two also reached an agreement to further develop and strengthen collaboration in the fields of finance, mobile communications, energy and construction of nuclear power plants, while agreeing to strengthen collaboration in environmental matters, such as building environment-friendly, energy-saving societies.

   They also shared the recognition that the bilateral people-to-people exchanges that now stand at 6 million annually should be further increased on a sustained basis, and decided to strengthen cooperation in this regard.

   ycm@yna.co.kr
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