Seoul, Sep 18 (AHN) South Korea President Lee Jae Myung has said the country will stand together with the United States, Seoul's longtime ally, in the new global order, but voiced the need to manage relations with China.

"We will stand together with the US in the new global order, as well as supply chains centred on the US, but there is a need for us to manage our relationship with China so as not to antagonise them," Lee said, Yonhap reported, citing the President's interview with the US weekly magazine TIME.

If not, there is "a risk that South Korea could become the front line of a battle between two different blocs," Lee was quoted as saying on the occasion to mark his 100 days in office.

Lee said South Korea's past strategy of "relying for security on the US and economically on China" is no longer viable amid a radical shift in the geopolitical environment.

Instead, Lee told the magazine that South Korea hopes to act as a "bridge" between the US and China to prevent relations from spiralling in the new era of great power competition.

While working to strengthen ties with Washington, the alliance has been tested by a recent immigration crackdown on South Korean workers at a battery plant construction site in Georgia and by ongoing trade negotiations over Seoul's US$350 billion investment pledge in return for lowering US tariffs to 15 per cent.

He described the talks as tense, saying US demands have been so strict that "if I were to agree, then I would be impeached! So I asked the US negotiating team for a reasonable alternative."

On North Korea, Lee said South Korea could consider sanctions relief in return for Pyongyang freezing its nuclear and missile programs as part of his phased denuclearisation road map.

Lee threw his support for "negotiations to partially ease or lift sanctions" on North Korea in exchange for a three-stage process: suspension, reduction and finally denuclearisation.

"As our short-term goal, we should stop their nuclear and missile programs. And we might be able to compensate them for some of these measures and afterwards then pursue disarmament and then complete denuclearisation," Lee told Time. "I believe that President (Donald) Trump would be on the same page."

Lee stressed the need to find "a middle ground" through negotiations, arguing that past strategies of applying pressure solely through sanctions were no longer feasible.

"If we tell North Korea to just stop, would they stop their programs?" he asked. "I believe that if we continue to apply the current pressure, then … North Korea will continue to produce more bombs."

North Korea has been under strict UN sanctions since 2017 for its nuclear and missile programs, but is believed to have received food and other necessities from Russia in exchange for supplying military equipment and troops for the war in Ukraine.