China, South Korea Hold 17th Round of FTA Phase Two Talks in Seoul

The services and investment chapter is where China–South Korea trade rules have lagged goods liberalization, so a negative-list framework on cross-border services would mark a substantive step rather than a procedural one. The stated aim to conclude talks early matters most for financial, logistics and professional-service providers weighing cross-border delivery models, and for the wider question of whether China's FTA template is converging on negative-list commitments. Whether the reported progress translates into a concluded text, and how market-access carve-outs are drawn, is the open question.