Preface

China and South Korea, both in Northeast Asia, are not only neighboring countries, but also similar or even share commonality in culture and other aspects. South Korea has been deeply influenced by Chinese Confucian culture, and it keeps many traditional Confucian cultures; therefore, China and South Korea are considered by many people to belong to the Confucian cultural circle. These two countries both experienced rapid economic development in a relatively short time. In 1962, South Korea started its first“Five-year Economic Development Plan”，and after that its economy has maintained sustained growth. While after China implemented“Reform and Opening Up”in 1978 and established the market economy, its economy also entered into a period of sustained and rapid growth. During the real estate development process in China and South Korea, there are many similarities between the two countries in the basic impact factors. The real estate industry of South Korea developed at a time of accelerating urbanization, with urbanization levels of 28% in 1960,48.4% in 1975 and 74.4% in 1990. China is also experiencing rapid urbanization. What's more, both countries are characterized by high population density and severe strain on land resource. More importantly, in regulating the real estate market, China and South Korea also have many similarities, the most important of which is that both countries' governments intervene in the market. In many aspects, we can learn from the experience of South Korea in real estate.

Because of these similarities of culture, especially in real estate development and regulation, many people want to choose South Korea as a reference in international comparative studies of real estate. In addition, the development of South Korea's real estate market happened much earlier than in China, so there are many people who want to take it as a reference in forecasting for China's real estate. However, the amount of materials and studies on this topic in Chinese is very limited. In recent years, we and experts and scholars in real estate research from Korea Development Institute, Konkuk University and other academic institutions have engaged in academic exchanges, hoping to make some contribution to studies on South Korea's real estate.

In October 2010, we agreed with our counterparts in South Korea to carry out studies on the real estate in the two countries, and this book is just a result of that cooperative research. Meanwhile, in order to deepen the research and communication between the two countries, “Academic Symposium on Real Estate of China and South Korea”was held in August 2011 attended by scholars from both sides at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences（CASS）.

We owe special thanks to Centre of Asian Studies of CASS for funding this research program and the Academic Symposium on Real Estate of China and South Korea.

We are also indebted to the leaders from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Bureau of International Cooperation of CASS, Centre of Asian Studies of CASS, Bureau of Scientific Research Management of CASS and Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of CASS for their support to the Academic Symposium on Real Estate of China and South Korea.

We also thank Mr. Li Qiling for his hard work in translating this book between Chinese and Korean. At that time he was a PhD student in the Graduate School of CASS from South Korea.

Real estate involves various factors, such as society, economy and land resources, and it is also a basic necessity of life. However, different people have different values, knowledge background, income levels, purchasing will and purposes, so they have different understandings of the real estate problems. Therefore, these authors are inevitably limited in their understanding, and the book could certainly be better than it is. We welcome your comments.

Li Jingguo

April 2013