BEIJING: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will meet Monday with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing, with closer economic ties as well as the recalcitrant North on the agenda.

Lee is the first South Korean leader to visit Beijing in six years, and his meeting with Xi on Monday came a day after the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang fired two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.

The pair will meet for an opening ceremony and a summit before the signing of an agreement and a state banquet, Seoul has said.

The South Korean leader, accompanied by a delegation of business and tech leaders, hopes to secure pledges to expand economic cooperation with his country's largest trading partner.

He has previously called for South Korea and China to work towards "more horizontal and mutually beneficial" trade.

And he hopes to possibly harness China's clout over North Korea to support his bid to improve ties with Pyongyang.

"China is a very important cooperative partner in moving toward peace and unification on the Korean Peninsula," Lee said during a meeting with Korean residents in Beijing on Sunday, according to Yonhap news agency.

Xi and Lee last met in November on the sidelines of the APEC summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju — a meeting Seoul framed as a reset of ties after years of tension.

Seoul has for decades trodden a fine line between China, its top trading partner, and the United States, its chief defense guarantor.

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South Korea's Lee to meet Xi with trade, Pyongyang on the agenda