중국의 정책을 고려한 한국의 동아시아 경제통합 추진 방향

The purpose of this article is to propose to the Korean government a reasonable policy regarding East Asia economic integration through understanding the China’s policies, particularly the China’s FTA strategy. The Northeast Asia, primarily Korea, China, and Japan, could not have integrated as a comprehensive Regional Trade Arrangement (RTA), such as EU and NAFTA, even though Northeast Asia region is already reorganized one of three major parts in worldwide economy. The Northeast Asian economic integration is urgently crucial because: 1) the intra-trade ratio of EU and NAFTA is respectively more than 65% and 45% whereas the intra-trade ratio among Korea, China, and Japan is no more than 23%, which implies the trade diversion effect derived from the established RTA; 2)Besides advantage and efficiency in international trade aspects, even in socio- political aspects, the Northeast Asian countries would strengthen their positions in international organizations and societies as a result of integrating into a RTA. For example, the EU deals effectively with the United States by using a single discussion channel in matters like trade and disputes settlement, while Korea, Japan and China tackle the problems individually and often ineffectively. The main characteristics of China’s FTA driving policies center on the neighbor countries and on the countries having abundant energy and natural resources. As an adjacent country to China, Korea is a major prospective FTA partner of China. However, Korea, which lacks of energy and natural resources, is eager to get hold of the resources. It means that Korea and China are competitive in securing the resources. So, it needs to build cooperative relationship between Korea and China under the common purpose of securing energy and natural resources, especially in the negotiation of the East Asia RTA and the Korea-China FTA. China’s standpoints for East Asia economic integration could be summarized that 1) AEAN+3(Korea, China, Japan) is the ideal frame of East Asia RTA and that 2) China takes aggressive approach concerning Northeast Asia RTA. Compared to China, Korea has weaker influence in ASEAN countries. Also, compared to the some common cultural background with China and Japan, with ASEAN countries, Korea has not any remarkable culture commonness. Accordingly, it is recommended that the FTA with ASEAN and further the FTA with East Asia should be the lower level of Free Trade Area, however higher level integration of Northeast Asia RTA, such as Customs Union, should be propelled. Reflecting the geographical factors and the level of economic development, the possible East Asia RTA should be basically made by the way that Korea, China and Japan serve as core countries in the integration. The East Asia regional integration should be collective policy arrangement to solve the global task, such as climate change as well as typical RTA. Considering the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 insufficient supply of foreign currency in Korea with the remarkable cost of foreign currency holding cost in China and Japan, it is necessary to build regional international financial system, such as Asian Monetary Fund (AMF), to solve regional financial problems more efficiently and rapidly.