President Park Geun-hye met with a former top Chinese diplomat Friday as she prepares for her first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping that she plans to use to enlist Beijing’s help in pressuring North Korea to give up its nuclear programs.

The meeting with Xi, set for June 27, comes after the new Chinese president and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed at a summit earlier this month that Pyongyang has to abandon its nuclear weapons aspirations, the latest indication that Beijing may be toughening its stance on the communist neighbor.

As a key provider of economic aid and diplomatic protection for North Korea, China has long been considered the only country with any meaningful influence over Pyongyang, though it has been reluctant to use that leverage over concern that pushing the North too hard could hurt its national interests.

In recent months, however, China has apparently been taking a tougher approach to Pyongyang, especially after the North’s long-range rocket launch in December and its third nuclear test in February. Beijing has since backed a U.N. sanctions resolution against the North and has been carrying out the restrictions more vigorously than before.

On Friday, Park met with former Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan and was expected to discuss the planned summit with Xi and issues related to North Korea. It was Park’s sixth meeting with Tang, an expert on Korean issues who served as China’s foreign minister from 1998-2003.

“I know that even after retirement, you’ve engaged in energetic activity for the sake of China’s diplomacy, made frequent visits to South Korea and are trying to contribute to the diplomacy of the two countries,” Park said at the start of the meeting.

“I hope you will continue your contribution to relations between the two countries,” she said.

Park has repeatedly said he will use the summit with Xi to further bolster cooperation with Beijing in making Pyongyang realize that its bad behavior will never be rewarded and it has no other choice but to change course and become a responsible member of the international community.

North Korea was a focus of global attention for months earlier this year as the provocative regime made near-daily war threats against South Korea and the United States in anger over the U.N. sanctions resolution and American-involved annual military drills in the South.

In an abrupt about-face, however, Pyongyang made a surprise dialogue proposal last week. South Korea accepted the offer and the two sides had agreed to hold their first high-level talks in six years this week, but the agreement unraveled at the last minute due to a dispute over the levels of chief delegates.

In a lunch meeting with state-honored patriots and their families, Park said South Korea faces a mountain of issues to resolve, but she believes that everything will be fine if the country tries to tackle them based on “principles.”

The remark was seen as underlining her commitment to stick to principles in dealing with North Korea without giving in to threats and provocations from Pyongyang so as to put inter-Korean relations on a more normal footing.

Seoul’s insistence on matching the levels of chief delegates was indicative of those principles. (Yonhap News)