China sending envoy to North Korea to revive nuclear talks

BEIJING -- China said Thursday it will send a top communist party official to North Korea for talks with its longtime ally in an effort to break a stalemate over the North's nuclear program, but Beijing urged patience in its dealing with the volatile country.

U.S. and South Korean envoys visited Beijing to seek help in persuading the isolated North to rejoin six-nation nuclear talks that were suspended in June. Those talks include the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan.

China, the North's biggest backer and a major source of aid to the impoverished country, has been wary of openly testing its influence with Pyongyang.

China urged patience with the unpredictable North, which has rejected calls to return to the six-nation talks, accusing Washington of hostility. Last week, Pyongyang announced it has produced nuclear weapons. The claim could not be independently verified.

"We are of the view that we should not resort to sanctions or pressure in international relations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said at a regular briefing. "Further complicating the issue will compromise the safety and security of the region."

Kong confirmed that Wang Jiarui, head of the communist party's international department, would visit North Korea this week, but he did not give specific dates.

Meanwhile, South Korean officials said they believed China could do more to win over the North.

"I think China has a much bigger card to play than we expect. The question is whether it will play it," South Korea's ambassador to China, Kim Ha-joong, said at a news conference Thursday in Seoul.

China, which held three earlier rounds of nuclear talks that resulted in little progress, has consistently said it favors a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

Though China helped defend North Korea in the 1950 to 1953 Korean War, Beijing worries that a nuclear-armed North would raise tensions in the region and prompt Japan and South Korea to develop atomic weapons.

While working to resolve the standoff, "the Chinese side requires that the DPRK side and United States show more flexibility and sincerity," Kong said, using the acronym for the North's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Washington views North Korea as a formidable threat even without a nuclear capability.

North Korea expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002. It is not known to have tested an atomic bomb, although international officials have long suspected it has one or two nuclear weapons and could be making more.

CIA director Porter Goss told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday that the North has been developing, making, deploying and selling ballistic missiles.

CIA analysts believe the North plans to build a uranium-based nuclear bomb in addition to plutonium-based weapons and chemical and biological weapons programs.

Speaking in Seoul, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that China told his government it plans "other initiatives" apart from sending Wang to Pyongyang.

Ban did not elaborate, but Kim, the South Korean ambassador to Beijing, noted Beijing's role as the North's main supplier of fuel, aid and other imports.

China is believed to supply Pyongyang with up to one-third of its food and one-quarter of its energy. The North's farm system collapsed in the 1990s, forcing the country to depend on foreign aid to feed its people.

"There are currently a few railways and 15 unofficial roads connecting North Korea and China," Kim said. "Imagine what kind of situation will arise in North Korea if China decides one day to close three of those roads for repair for a couple of months."

In the past, Beijing has insisted it has little influence over the Stalinist regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and has resisted U.S. appeals to pressure its ally.

"China will be concerned about whether playing that card will hurt their 55 years of amicable relationship with the North," Kim Ha-joong said.

American and South Korean delegates traveled separately to Beijing to confer with Chinese officials Thursday.

"This is my first visit to China and I don't think it will be my last," Christopher Hill, the new U.S. negotiator assigned to getting the North to abandon its nuclear program, told Chinese deputy foreign minister Wu Dawei.

Hill, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, also met Wu's boss, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.