China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his South Korean counterpart Chung Eui Yong agreed Saturday to work in tandem to urge North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons, with tensions on the divided peninsula escalating recently.

In their talks in China's Fujian Province, Chung told Wang that Seoul and Beijing have a "common goal" of achieving denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, according to South Korea's media.

Wang was also quoted by the media as telling Chung that China will join hands with South Korea to promote the political resolution of matters surrounding the peninsula through dialogue.

The meeting was held after North Korea late last month fired two projectiles that appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions banning Pyongyang from using any ballistic technology.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have pledged to cooperate in tackling North Korea's nuclear and missile threat.

China has been aiming to prevent South Korea, a US security ally, from further forging ties with the administration of US President Joe Biden over the North Korean issue, foreign affairs experts say.

As their relations with the United States have shown few signs of improvement soon since Biden took office in January, China and North Korea have been deepening their ties to resist political pressure from the new US administration.

US-North Korea negotiations on denuclearization and sanctions relief have been at a standstill, while Beijing and Washington are at loggerheads over several matters including trade, state-of-the-art technology and alleged human rights abuses.

China, meanwhile, has been cozying up to South Korea, seeing the East Asian nation as the "weakest part" of the trilateral alliance among Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, the South's media said.