June 13, 2015 - China Expands International Trade Agreements

If you're searching for a major China trade event around June 13, 2015, you're close but slightly off the mark. China didn't finalize its landmark agreements on that exact date. It signed the China–Korea FTA on June 1 and the China–Australia FTA (ChAFTA) on June 17—both entering into force December 20, 2015. These deals reshaped Asia-Pacific trade dependencies that had already been quietly shifting for years. Keep going to see how deep those changes actually ran.

Key Takeaways

China signed the China–Korea FTA on June 1, 2015, targeting tariffs on over 90% of goods and projecting bilateral trade exceeding $300 billion.
The China–Australia FTA (ChAFTA) was officially signed on June 17, 2015, marking China's first FTA with a major developed economy.
Both the China–Korea FTA and ChAFTA entered into force on December 20, 2015, following their mid-2015 signings.
ChAFTA immediately made 92.9% of Australia's resources and energy exports to China duty-free, delivering USD 1.02 billion in tariff relief.
The 2015 agreements deepened China's strategic trade architecture across the Asia-Pacific, reinforcing existing integration trends established since the ASEAN–China FTA in 2010.

What Trade Deals Did China Already Have Before 2015?

Before 2015, China had already built a solid foundation of trade agreements spanning multiple regions. You can trace these historical treaties back to 2003, when China signed CEPAs with Hong Kong and Macau, strengthening regional integration with both territories under a single framework covering goods, services, and investment.

China then expanded outward, signing FTAs with Chile in 2005 and Pakistan in 2006, targeting tariff reductions and market access. By 2008 and 2009, agreements with New Zealand, Singapore, and Peru followed.

China also finalized an FTA with ASEAN, with full implementation by 2010, and signed Taiwan's ECFA and a Costa Rica FTA that same year. Each deal reflected China's deliberate strategy of broadening its global trade reach before 2015. Notably, Hong Kong maintains a separate customs territory as a Special Administrative Region, allowing it to independently sign its own trade agreements distinct from those negotiated by mainland China.

China's bilateral investment relationships were also taking shape during this period, with approximately 107 to 110 BITs in force with various countries and regions, establishing terms and protections for private investors alongside its growing FTA network. These agreements often intersected with broader land and resource governance discussions, similar to how Brazil's Indigenous land regulations under Law No. 14,701 addressed recognition and management frameworks tied to territorial sovereignty.

What Did the ChAFTA Agreement Actually Cover?

With China's pre-2015 trade deals setting the stage, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, or ChAFTA, marked a significant step forward as China's first FTA with a major developed economy. It delivered broad market access across goods, services, and investment.

You'll find ChAFTA covered three core areas:

Goods – 92.9% of China's imports of Australia's resources and energy products became duty-free immediately upon entry into force.
Services – Australia adopted a negative-list approach, granting China equal regulatory treatment and advancing regulatory harmonization across education, legal, and financial sectors.
Investment – Private Chinese investors received equal status with private Australian investors, strengthening cross-border facilitation.

Together, these provisions created a predictable commercial framework supporting Australia's largest export market. In a similar vein, Canada has pursued its own legislative efforts to improve economic conditions, including intergenerational business transfers through amendments to the Income Tax Act targeting small businesses and family farm or fishing corporations.

China signed two major free trade agreements in 2015: the China-Korea FTA on June 1 and the China-Australia FTA on June 17, with both entering into force on December 20, 2015.

You'll notice these deals represented China's key trade milestones that year, as no other standalone FTAs were signed.

The China-Korea agreement covered tariffs on over 90% of goods, positioning itself as a stepping stone toward a trilateral China-Korea-Japan deal.

Unlike emerging frameworks addressing China Africa partnerships or digital trade provisions gaining traction elsewhere, these 2015 agreements focused primarily on traditional goods and services barriers. The China-Korea FTA is formally categorized by UNCTAD as a treaty with investment provisions, meaning it extends beyond trade to include mapped investment protection elements.

The China-Korea FTA alone projected bilateral trade surpassing $300 billion annually, up from $215 billion in 2012, demonstrating significant economic ambition behind both agreements. The agreement established a framework consistent with Article XXIV GATT 1994, ensuring its free trade area designation aligned with established multilateral trade rules. In contrast, Canada's approach to foreign investment oversight took a different direction, with national security reviews being significantly strengthened through amendments to the Investment Canada Act granted Royal Assent in March 2024.

What Tariff Reductions Did China's 2015 FTAs Deliver?

The 2015 FTAs delivered sweeping tariff reductions across both agreements. You'll see significant tariff convergence reshaping market access for exporters on multiple fronts, with clear supply chain implications and export diversification opportunities emerging from each deal.

ChAFTA highlights:

29.2% of tariff lines dropped to zero immediately, covering 85.3% of Australia's import volume
USD 1.02 billion in tariff relief realized upon entry—61.5% of total projected benefits
Garments, leather, electronics, and mechanical products captured USD 1.53 billion, representing 91.9% of total reductions

China-Korea FTA targeted 90% of goods for elimination within 20 years, zeroing tariffs on electronics including rice cookers, washing machines, and refrigerators while establishing phased schedules for steel and motors. ChAFTA was officially signed on June 17, 2015 in Canberra by Minister Gao Hucheng and Minister Andrew Robb, formally activating the tariff elimination schedules negotiated over nearly a decade of talks.

These regional trade milestones built on precedents set by the ACFTA, which had already reduced average tariffs on ASEAN goods sold in China from 9.8% to 0.1% when it came into force on 1 January 2010.

Why China's 2015 FTA Push Still Shapes Asia-Pacific Trade

Beyond their immediate tariff wins, the 2015 FTAs set in motion a strategic architecture that still defines how Asia-Pacific trade flows today. You can see China's geopolitical signaling clearly in its simultaneous push for FTAAP at the 2015 APEC summit, directly countering TPP's exclusionary design. By linking these agreements to Belt and Road, China tied trade liberalization to infrastructure connectivity, compounding its regional influence.

China's gradualist model also secured lasting rulemaking influence. By designing agreements around its own preferences, it shaped the baseline from which RCEP and China-Japan-Korea FTA negotiations later proceeded. You're essentially watching a compounding strategy: each limited agreement expanded over time, pulling more economies into frameworks China helped architect, making its trade standards increasingly difficult for the region to ignore. Analysts projected that a successful RCEP would boost China's GDP by 1.4% and exports by 11.2%, underscoring how much economic weight these alternative frameworks carried.

Between 2001 and 2009, ASEAN exports to the U.S. declined by 7.5%, and by 2010 China had become ASEAN's largest trade partner, illustrating how dramatically the region's export dependencies had already reoriented toward Beijing even before the 2015 agreements deepened that gravitational pull. This same logic of incremental integration mirrors how Axiom Space structured its commercial station strategy, where initial ISS attachment reduced financial risk while validating long-term independent operations before a planned 2028 separation.