China attaches importance to diplomatic relations with major powers, the BRICS, developing countries, and medium-sized powers. South Korea is the starting point for China to carry out 'middle-power' diplomacy. China-ROK relations are of great strategic significance:

Firstly, significance for the international order. The backbone that determines the future of international order, G20, can be broadly divided into three groups of countries: G7, BRICS, and medium-sized powers. The key for the G20 to achieve success is to establish links between the three groups and achieve joint development. China is a typical emerging power, and South Korea is a typical medium-sized power. If South Korea participates in building a medium-sized power network and forms a cooperative dialogue mechanism with the BRICS in G20, it will effectively deal with the pressure by G7 and encourage the international order to engage more with the emerging countries and medium-sized powers.

Secondly, significance for regional order. China has proposed the Silk Road Belt initiative, and South Korea has posed the idea of becoming an estuary of the Eurasian continent. The two countries can expand strategic cooperation in future Asia-Europe economic regionalization. In particular, China and South Korea are planning to sign an FTA in the end of the year which may be the largest scale free trade agreement China has ever reached. As a part of the U.S. alliance system in Asia, it is essential that South Korea play an exemplary role that is conducive to Asia-Pacific Peace.

Thirdly, the significance of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea plays a crucial role in maintaining peace, stability, and denuclearization on the peninsula. The world has placed too much emphasis on US-DPRK or China-US relations, and has given inadequate attention to the role of South Korea. Now, we have to update our understanding. The new order of lasting peace and common prosperity on the peninsula needs combined efforts, and the peninsula could be a pilot of the new security concept in Asia in this process.

Therefore, China and South Korea can establish a special emerging power-medium-sized power relationship and conduct strategic cooperation in the G20, East Asia cooperative mechanism, and peninsula peace process. China-ROK relations have gone beyond the bilateral and regional level, and have begun to take on a global strategic significance. Chinese President Xi Jinping's ROK trip this month will raise the China-ROK strategic cooperative partnership to a new level.

The article is edited and translated from《中韩关系的三重战略意义》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Wang Yiwei, director and professor of the International Affairs Institute at Renmin University of China.