The recent proliferation of regional trade arrangements has been witnessed in East Asia,and free trade agreements (FTAs) have been actively pursued by many countries bothbilaterally and multilaterally. The Korean government has also shifted its trade policytoward FTAs based on the understanding that the participation in the preferential tradeAgreements are a required policy tool for foreign market access and economic growth.An FTA with China is becoming an important issue as the geographic proximity,market size and trade within the Sino-Korean relationship has grown closer andsignificantly more intense in recent years.The purpose of this paper is to investigate therecent trends of bilateral trade based on several selected economic criteria for FTA inorder to examine whether China and Korea would be desirable FTA partners from aneconomic point of view. Various trade related indices such as RCA, ITC and lIT areapplicd to examine the trade structure of comparative advantage and complementarybetween Korean and Chinese industries. The results from the calculation and analysisproved the initial assumption that the two countries are highly interdependent with agenerally complementary trade structure, and increasing intra-industry as well as existedtradp potential indicates mutual economic benefit after an FTA. However, the trend inrecent years shows an enhanced competitive relationship in certain manufacturingsectors, and increasing its competitive edge is an urgent assignment for Korea. Inaddition, a phase-out approach for sensitive sectors which would resist an FTA might bepreferred to alleviate the adjustment cost.