South Korean President Moon Jae-in accepted U.S. President Donald Trump’s invitation to join an expanded Group of Seven summit planned for the second half, Korea’s presidential Blue House said Monday.

Trump, host for this year’s G7 summit, announced Saturday that he was pushing back the date originally scheduled for late June to September or later. He also proposed inviting South Korea, Australia, Russia and India, calling the current membership a “very outdated group of countries” that does not properly “represent what’s going on in the world.”

He called up his South Korean counterpart to “discuss progress toward convening the G7 later this year,” according to a White House briefing.

Moon, in the call, welcomed Trump’s idea of expanding the G7, adding “the current G7 regime has limits in addressing global issues,” the Blue House said in a separate briefing.

Moon saved his words on China, maintaining instead that the focus of the meeting should be on post-COVID-19 economic recovery. Trump had previously said one of the main agendas of the summit would be discussing the future of China.

Seoul is once again caught in the crossfire between the two superpowers as the blame game over COVID-19 strains the already uneasy U.S.-China relations.

Further ratcheting up tensions, Trump declared last week that the U.S. would start taking actions to remove Hong Kong’s special treatment following China’s approval of a controversial national security bill that undermines the city’s autonomy.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday rallied the support of Korea and other allies, saying they could be “good partners” in protecting Western values from the Chinese threat.

Seoul incurred the wrath of China after deploying a U.S.-backed missile defense system in 2017, which Beijing saw a national security threat. China hit Korea with a slate of economic retaliatory measures, banning Korean packaged tours and calling for a boycott of Korean products, which dealt a heavy blow to Korean businesses.

By Kim Dae-gi, Ahn Doo-won, Kim Sung-hoon and Kim Hyo-jin

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