China pressures North Korea to return to talks

updated 10:22 p.m. ET July 11, 2006

BEIJING - China’s president on Tuesday urged North Korea to refrain from increasing tensions over its nuclear program and to return to disarmament talks as diplomats worked to forestall U.N. sanctions against the regime.

America’s top nuclear envoy made an unscheduled trip to China, saying efforts to resolve the crisis have reached a crucial point. A delegation from North Korea also came to Beijing.

China’s Foreign Ministry criticized a Japanese proposal that demands the North stop developing, testing and selling ballistic missiles as “an overreaction.”

Cabinet-level talks between North and South Korea, meanwhile, kicked off with the South saying Pyongyang’s missile tests were destabilizing the region.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told the visiting vice president of the North’s parliament, Yang Hyong Sop: “We are against any actions that will aggravate the situation. We hope that relevant parties will do more things conducive to the peace and stability of the peninsula,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Hu's firm warning
Hu said Beijing is “seriously concerned” and called for progress in stalled six-nation talks over the North’s nuclear program.

The warning by Hu, who rarely speaks publicly about North Korea, represented an unusually firm stance by Beijing and appeared to reflect growing frustration with its ally.

Pyongyang ignited the furor a week ago by test-firing seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 potentially capable of hitting the United States. The weapons, which landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, created a major new challenge to international efforts to defuse the North’s nuclear threat.

The tough talk from Hu follows an agreement by U.N. Security Council members to delay a vote on a Japanese proposal to sanction the North over the missile tests. The extra time was allowed to give China, the isolated regime’s main ally and aid donor, a chance to persuade Pyongyang to refrain from more launches. China has told other Security Council members it would veto this Japanese-proposed resolution if it comes to a vote, U.N. diplomats said Tuesday.

China: Japan overreacting
Earlier in the day, China said Tuesday that a Japan-sponsored U.N. resolution to slap sanctions on North Korea over its missile tests was an over-reaction that would split the Security Council.

The statement came as a top U.S. envoy flew into Beijing, seeking a briefing on China’s urgent efforts to resolve the crisis by diplomatic means.

The U.N. Security Council delayed a vote overnight on the resolution to impose sanctions on the isolated state to allow time for a high-level Chinese delegation to talk to Pyongyang.

“The Chinese side thinks the concerned draft resolution is an over-reaction. If approved, it will aggravate contradictions and increase tension,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news conference.

“It will harm peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asian region and hurt efforts to resume six-party talks as well as lead to the U.N. Security Council splitting.”

Senior U.S. diplomat Christopher Hill, Washington’s top man on North Korea, arrived back in the Chinese capital on Tuesday.

“I was asked to come back to Beijing to meet with the Chinese authorities and talk to them about how their diplomatic effort is doing in Pyongyang,” Hill told reporters at Beijing airport.

“As you know the vote in the Security Council has been postponed while the Chinese endeavor to engage with the DPRK (North Korea). So I want to be close to that process. So I hope to have some meetings this afternoon to talk to the Chinese to see how they see that going ... Obviously we are in a rather crucial period.”

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