South Korean lawmakers from the opposition Minjoo Party are to visit China on Wednesday to meet top Beijing officials, including China’s foreign minister, in talks aimed at discussing issues related to the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

The meeting is intended to improve South Korean-Chinese economic cooperation, which has been strained since last year’s decision by the ROK government to finalized the deployment of the system to the South, Minjoo officials said.

“The Chinese government, officially, is saying that the economic strain between the two nations has nothing to do with the deployment of the system” Song Young-gil,