For the second time in two months, the leaders of South Korea and China all but ignored the North Korean elephant in the room.

At a summit in Beijing on Monday, ROK President Lee Jae Myung and China’s Xi Jinping discussed bilateral issues ranging from economic cooperation and cultural exchange to illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea, seeking to repair strained ties.

But in a clear break from other leader-level talks over the last decade, the subject of Pyongyang’s denuclearization did not feature in public readouts of the summit’s result, despite North