1. Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun visited China to review measures to follow up on the 22nd meeting of the Republic of Korea-China Joint Economic Committee (April 20). He met with Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Yan, and discussed ways to facilitate efforts to bring exchanges and cooperation between the ROK and China back on a normal track.

o Vice Minister Cho recalled that in December last year, the leaders of the two countries agreed to get their economic relations back onto a normal track in all areas, and stressed that approval for the construction of Lotte World in Shenyang, the disposal of Lotte Mart, and subsidies for electric vehicle batteries would be criteria in the implementation of the agreement, and asked for cooperation from China to bring bilateral exchanges and cooperation back on a normal track as early as possible.

2. Furthermore, Vice Minister Cho emphasized that the resumption of Chinese group tours to the ROK was a key issue directly related to trust-building between the peoples of the two countries, as well as the restoration of bilateral exchanges and cooperation. He also offered to continue to strengthen environmental cooperation, saying that it was an important issue that brings benefits to the peoples of both countries.

o In particular, Vice Minister Cho said that if the significant drop in the number of Chinese group tourists to the ROK compared to 2016 persisted for a long time despite agreements reached between the leaders and high-level officials of the two countries on numerous occasions, the Korean people’s faith in China could drop dramatically, and expressed hope that the Chinese side would take this seriously, and immediately take necessary measures.

- Vice Minister Gao said that the number of Chinese group tourists to the ROK rose by more than 50 percent in the second quarter of 2018 compared to the same period last year, and expected this trend to continue, as the ROK-China relations were continuing to improve.

o Vice Minister Cho offered to pursue closer cooperation between the two countries on environmental issues, including fine dust, which are closely related to the health of the people, saying that the governments of both countries were making efforts to improve the quality of people’s lives through environmental protection.

3. Meanwhile, on the latest US-China trade conflict, Vice Minister Cho said that the ROK government basically supported free and fair trade principles, and hoped that economic issues between the US and China would be resolved smoothly based on international norms and agreements between the two countries.

o Vice Minister Gao said that China’s position remained the same that they continue to pursue reform and opening-up regardless of changes in the external environment, and uphold free trade and the multilateral trading system.

※ During his visit to the US (July 24-28), Vice Minister Cho explained the aforementioned position in his meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Manisha Singh as well.

* unofficial translation