CHINA: As the United Nations Security Council remains divided over its response to North Korea's missile launches, China has urged Pyongyang to return to multi-party disarmament talks and has drafted its own UN statement on the crisis.
Chinese president Hu Jintao told the vice-president of North Korea's parliament, Yang Hyong Sop, who is visiting Beijing, that he is "seriously concerned" about the regional tension that followed last week's launches and called for progress in stalled six-party talks.
"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," Mr Hu said.
The UN Security Council delayed a vote this week on a Japanese resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea to allow time for a high-level Chinese delegation to talk to Pyongyang. The resolution identifies North Korea as a threat to international peace and security and invokes Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which makes it binding on all UN members and in certain circumstances lays the groundwork for military force.
The United States, Britain and France support the Japanese resolution, but China and Russia oppose it.
"The Chinese side thinks the concerned draft resolution is an over-reaction. If approved, it will aggravate contradictions and increase tension. It will harm peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and northeast Asian region and hurt efforts to resume six-party talk,s as well as lead to the UN Security Council splitting," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.
China introduced its own draft Security Council statement on North Korea on Monday, which contains most of the elements of the Japanese resolution but would not be binding and does not threaten sanctions.
The Chinese statement says that last week's missile launches "caused negative implications to regional peace and stability" and calls on North Korea "to cease the development, testing, deployment and proliferation of ballistic missiles and return to its moratorium on missile launching".
Britain and the US dismissed the Chinese statement as inadequate, but the postponement of a vote on the Japanese resolution reflects Washington's determination to maintain as far as possible a united front with China over North Korea.
North Korea walked out of six-party disarmament talks with the US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea last year.
Pyongyang says it will not return to the talks until Washington releases $24 million in North Korean assets frozen in a Macau bank Washington accuses of money laundering.