Seoul: Prime Minister Kim Min-seok has said South Korea wishes for China to make positive contributions to inter-Korean relations, including to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Kim made the remark in an interview with the Hong Kong weekly, Yazhou Zhoukan, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s expected visit to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. “We always hope that China will make positive contributions when it comes to inter-Korean relations,” he said in the interview conducted Sept. 22 and published Thursday, in response to a question about whether Seoul plans to request Xi’s assistance regarding inter-Korean exchanges. “That includes contributions to both promoting peaceful dialogue between South and North, and realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” he added.

The prime minister rejected notions that China has established a new trilateral “alliance” involving China, Russia, and North Korea to counter the trilateral partnership between South Korea, the United States, and Japan. “We take note of President Xi Jinping’s affirmation that he does not want confrontation between blocs,” he said. “We continue to believe the Chinese government is maintaining its established stance of promoting peace and dialogue, and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, and that it will stick to its position of peacefully resolving issues between South and North.”

On the possibility of a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the APEC summit, the prime minister said it would be “good” if the two leaders meet, but that the probability of Kim’s summit attendance via invitation is “low.” He also cast doubt that inter-Korean relations will improve at a time when the North Korean leader remains “cold” toward the South.

The prime minister addressed a host of other foreign policy issues, including U.S. demands for South Korea to increase its defense spending and tensions in the Taiwan Strait. He said South Korea is continually strengthening its security posture to achieve “self-reliant defense” and that its growing spending on defense is based on its own needs, regardless of the “surrounding situation.”

South Korea also hopes for the Taiwan Strait to be “stabilized peacefully” but will not, in principle, enter into a conflict outside the Korean Peninsula without the consent of the Korean people, he said. “The South Korea-U.S. alliance primarily focuses its capabilities on peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”