President Lee Myung-bak and Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday met and agreed to launch free trade negotiations in the next few months. A successful FTA with China would mean that Korea would be the only country in the world to form such pacts with the world's three major export markets, the other two being the European Union and the U.S.

The government also wants to launch FTA talks with Japan, but does not plan to rush either one, because an FTA with China would lead to an influx of cheap Chinese products that compete directly with goods manufactured by small and mid-sized Korean companies, while domestic farmers could suffer from a flood of Chinese agricultural products. The impact could be much larger than the effects of the Korea-U.S. FTA.

Also coming into play is the thinking that bilateral trade, which is growing at a rate of 20 percent per year, would only increase Korea's economic dependence on China after the FTA is signed. But it appears that the government nonetheless wants to forge an FTA deal with China to form a closer relationship with Beijing in case of an emergency in North Korea and to prevent further damage from illegal fishing by Chinese fishermen in South Korean waters.

FTA talks with China require gaining the upper hand in the fields of finance, copyright and patents, medicine and even culture, because Korea will have to make considerable concessions in areas involving small businesses and agricultural and fisheries products. To prepare for the possible influx of food products that do not meet safety standards, Seoul must demand tougher controls from Beijing and ensure that Korean officials can take part in investigations when probes in China are deemed ineffective. It also needs to discuss the issue of environmental pollution from Chinese manufacturers affecting the Korean Peninsula.

China has shown two faces in international negotiations. It demands to be treated either as a superpower or as a developing country, depending on what it stands to gain from either position. The government must ensure that China sits down at the negotiating table fully aware of its rights and responsibilities as the world's No. 2 economic power.