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 test also appears to indicate Pyongyang’s objection to South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s visit to Beijing.

Relations with Beijing will also improve considerably. North Korea will seek normalisation of trade relations and economic assistance from China, while China will attempt to manage conflict escalation on the Korean Peninsula. Both China and Russia are likely to show a more tolerant attitude towards North Korea’s nuclear weapons status.

South Korean President Lee meets Xi Jinping in Beijing to discuss trade and North Korean tensions amid recent missile launches.

North Korea on Sunday "strongly" denounced the U.S. military strike that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, calling the ouster of Maduro "the most serious form of encroachment of sovereignty." The North's foreign ministry made the remarks as U.