"I hope that South Korea and China will strengthen strategic communication... and work together to resume dialogue with the North," Lee told Xi, according to his office.

Stressing the need for "stability" in the region, Lee noted "recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea" -- a reference to leader Kim Jong Un's recent attendance at a major military parade in Beijing.

Those meetings, Lee said, "are helping to create conditions for renewed engagement with Pyongyang".

Seoul has long trodden a fine line between top trading partner China and the United States, the South's chief defence guarantor.

Lee told Xi that economic relations were developing from "a vertical structure of economic cooperation to a more horizontal and mutually beneficial one".

"We must work together to build a relationship that delivers shared prosperity," he said.