Dust pollution has recently become a shared environmental issue for both China and South Korea. This paper reviews the progress of China-South Korea cooperation on dust pollution control since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, covering developments and achievements in policy dialogue, technical exchanges, and joint research. Additionally, this paper highlights the issues and challenges in China-South Korea environmental cooperation, such as the impact of political and economic factors, insufficient cooperation mechanisms, and low levels of public engagement. Finally, with a view to the future, this paper proposes three policy recommendations to advance environmental cooperation between the two countries: 1) strengthening bilateral cooperation to enhance the sustainability of environmental policies; 2) improving multilateral cooperation mechanisms to promote technological innovation; and 3) encouraging public participation to build a diversified governance framework. Finally, it is recommended to further refine the public participation pathways in future cooperation, incorporating successful case studies, and to clarify the division of responsibilities among the stakeholders in the multilateral cooperation mechanism to enhance the feasibility of the collaboration.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proposed the concept of “Chinese Path to Modernization” at the 20th National Congress of the CCP in October 2022. Thereafter, President Xi Jinping further developed the concept in various public speeches and saw it as a key theoretical innovation for the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics. “Chinese Path to Modernization” embodies five main features: modernization of a huge population, of common prosperity for all, of material and cultural-ethical advancement, of harmony between humanity and nature, and of peaceful development. It indicates that China expects to breaks the modernization model of Western powers and seeks to build theoretical foundation for its own development path. Despite “Chinese Path to Modernization” growing into a heated topic among the Chinese academia, existing research appears to be overwhelmingly propaganda-oriented and lacks of solid academic basis. Meanwhile, the “Chinese Path to Modernization” theory has also drawn substantial research attention in Korea. Korea’s China experts have provided various analysis on possible impacts to Chinese political economy and Sino-Korean relations in the future. This paper reviews the evolution of modernization theory in China. Moreover, this study also explores the core ideas and key implications embedded into this emerging concept, and looks at its potential impacts to China’s national governance from both theoretical and policy-based landscapes.

Southeast Asia has become a key area for the development of the “Belt and Road’ initiative (BRI). At present, among the six economic corridors planned by the BRI, Southeast Asia has covered two of them – the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor. In the meantime, Southeast Asia is also an important part of ”21st Century Maritime Silk Road“ initiative, and thus can been considered as a sample of demonstration for the globalization strategy of the BRI. This study finds that in recent years, China-invested infrastructure and connnectivity building (particularly the railway constructions) have been growing fast in Southeast Asia. In addition, a number of China-ASEAN industrial cooperation zones have been established. Together with an increasing number of enterprises settled in these zones, transnational supply chains have begun to take shape. In this context, China’s private-owned enterprises have also started to expand their investment in the Southeast Asian markets. Nonetheless, the BRI has been confronted with problems and challenges, and has been criticized for the lack of risk management, profitability, sustainability, localization and public support. It shows that the export of ”China Model“ can be problematic, as it remains not adapted to other countries’ local conditions. This research first looks at the achievements of the BRI in Southeast Asia, and then examines the problems and challenges in these projects. Finally, this article also aims to provide a number of policy recommendations to the Chinese government.