The ruling and opposition parties of South Korea have been fi ercely debating whether to conditionally approve the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement （ FTA）. The focus of the controversy is the abolition of the provisions related to Investor-State Dispute Settlement Mechanisms （ ISD） in the Korea-US FTA，and its essence resulted from the two parties ' opposing assessment of the ISD's impact on South Korea.The debate in South Korea has many meaningful implications for China， which is preparing to negotiate more FTAs of its own， including that with South Korea. As China continues its era of foreign investment，such ISDs could be vitally important.