Zhu Rongji, the former Premier of the State Council of China who played a significant role in expanding economic cooperation between South Korea and China, passed away on August 12 in Beijing at the age of 97. Zhu was the first Chinese Premier to visit South Korea in 2000, where he met with President Kim Dae-jung and agreed to elevate the China-South Korea partnership to a "comprehensive cooperation stage." He also contributed to the establishment of an official intergovernmental consultative body to address investment issues between the two countries.
According to Chinese authorities and major foreign news outlets, Zhu died at 11:06 a.m. in Beijing while undergoing treatment for an illness. Born in 1928 in Changsha, Hunan Province, he graduated from Tsinghua University with a degree in electrical engineering. Zhu served as the mayor and party secretary of Shanghai, Vice Premier, and Governor of the People's Bank of China before becoming Premier from 1998 to 2003.
Zhu's connection with South Korea became prominent shortly after he took office. In April 1998, he met with former President Kim Dae-jung during the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in London, at a time when South Korea was grappling with a financial crisis. Zhu expressed China's intention to support South Korea's recovery and announced that the Chinese government would refrain from devaluing the yuan, amid concerns that a decline in the yuan's value could trigger a chain reaction of currency devaluations across Asia.
The two leaders met again during Kim's state visit to China in November of the same year, where they agreed to establish a "21st Century China-South Korea Partnership." South Korea acknowledged that China's yuan stability policy contributed to alleviating the Asian financial crisis, while China supported South Korea's economic reforms and efforts to overcome the crisis.
Zhu left a more direct mark on China-South Korea relations during his visit to South Korea from October 17 to 22, 2000, at the invitation of President Kim. On October 18, he held talks with Kim at the Blue House, where they agreed to advance their partnership to a comprehensive cooperation stage and expand exchanges in the fields of economy and investment.
One of the agreements made during this visit was the establishment of the "China-South Korea Investment Cooperation Committee." The two countries decided to create an official channel for government-to-government investment cooperation during Zhu's visit, leading to a high-level consultative body co-chaired by the South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Chinese Minister of Commerce. Key issues included addressing the challenges faced by South Korean companies operating in China, regulatory improvements, and participation in China's western development initiatives.
During this time, the two nations also discussed broadening their industrial cooperation to include sectors such as environment, high technology, petrochemicals, and steel. Zhu requested South Korean companies' involvement in China's western development projects and agreed to strengthen cooperation to promote investment between the two countries. This period marked a shift in China-South Korea economic relations from simple trade to investment and industrial collaboration.
Zhu also supported the reconciliation policy toward North Korea under the Kim Dae-jung administration. During his visit to South Korea, he positively assessed the improvement in inter-Korean relations following the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000 and expressed China's support for reconciliation and the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. He also attended the third ASEM held in Seoul during the same visit.
Zhu was present during the early stages of trilateral cooperation among South Korea, Japan, and China. In 1999, he, along with President Kim and former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, initiated breakfast meetings during the ASEAN+3 summit, laying the groundwork for cooperation among the three nations. This eventually led to the establishment of a regular summit system among the three countries.
Internally, Zhu was known as an economic bureaucrat who pushed for reforms in state-owned enterprises and the financial and fiscal sectors. In the late 1990s, he promoted the restructuring of failing state-owned enterprises and government organization reforms, and he played a key role alongside then-President Jiang Zemin in China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). China officially joined the WTO in 2001, integrating into the global trading system.
China's WTO membership significantly changed the environment for South Korean companies seeking to enter the Chinese market and domestic market. The expansion of investment and industrial cooperation that Zhu directly negotiated with South Korea coincided with a period of rapid market opening in China. The collaboration between the Kim Dae-jung administration and Zhu's government, which began in response to the financial crisis in the late 1990s, aligned with the process of expanding China-South Korea economic relations beyond trade into investment in the 2000s.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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