As Kim visits China, Seoul and Washington are calling off upcoming military drills as part of renewed efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

NOH KYU-DUK SOUTH KOREAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN "The governments of South Korea and China share the same strategic goal of completely denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Also, our government hopes China will play a constructive role in resolving this problem. We hope Chairman Kim Jong Un's visit will contribute to that."

Seoul and Washington announced they were suspending the annual August exercises on Monday. Despite that, South Korea insists that it expects the DPRK to take concrete steps to denuclearize in exchange for security guarantees.

KANG KYUNG-WHA SOUTH KOREAN FOREIGN MINISTER "The troop suspension, the drill suspension is a joint decision between the United States and South Korean military authorities. I think we've made it clear that this is a goodwill gesture to strengthen the dialogue momentum at this point. But they are not irreversible. They could quickly come back should we see the dialogue momentum losing speed, or the DPRK not living up to its denuclearization commitment."