COOPERATION ON SENSITIVE ISSUES

In addition, experts hailed the progress and successful cooperation between the two countries on historical issues which were considered sensitive in the past.

The remains of 437 Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War returned to China from the ROK earlier this year after Park offered to return the remains during her China visit last year.

A memorial was established in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, to commemorate Ahn Jung Geun, a Korean patriot who killed a top Japanese official over a century ago for the independence of his motherland and peace in East Asia.

The memorial has received between 500 and 600 visitors a day since it opened in January.

"These new moves show that cooperation between the two countries has moved from non-sensitive fields to traditionally sensitive ones," said Yang Xiyu, a Korean Peninsula analyst and a senior fellow at the China Institute of International Studies.

Surmounting such sensitive areas, bilateral cooperation will be upgraded and enter a more pragmatic stage, Yang said.