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US envoy off to Beijing for N Korea crisis talks
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei will meet US special envoy, Christopher Hill to discuss the issue.
The top US envoy on North Korea headed back to Beijing on Tuesday for an unscheduled visit as efforts intensified to find a diplomatic solution to a crisis sparked by Pyongyang's test-launch of missiles last week.
Overnight the UN Security Council delayed a vote on a Japan-sponsored resolution to impose sanctions on the isolated state so as to allow time for a high-level Chinese delegation to talk to Pyongyang.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who had been in the North Korean capital, returned to Beijing on Tuesday, apparently for talks with the US special envoy, Christopher Hill.
Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, who began a six-day visit to North Korea on Monday, was apparently still there. And North Korean official Yang Hyong Sop arrived in Beijing for a five-day visit that would include a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Xinhua news agency said.
A US State Department official had said on Sunday that Washington believed it had the backing in the 15-member council for the resolution to pass.
"China has a diplomatic mission currently in the field, we'll see how the Chinese do," Hill told reporters in Tokyo where he had held talks with Japanese officials on Monday.
"So I'll go to Beijing and hope to get a first-hand view on how China sees their efforts right now," Hill added.
Hill rushed to northeast Asia late last week, visiting Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo in an effort to forge a unified response to Wednesday's multiple missile launches, which have ratcheted up tension and exposed fault lines in responses by regional powers.
CHINA DRAFT
China, backed by Russia, submitted its own draft of a UN Security Council statement on Monday, fearing a binding resolution imposing sanctions might be used to lay the groundwork for future military action. Both Beijing and Moscow have the power to veto any resolution.
South Korea also opposes sanctions.
The United States, Britain and Japan, however, are opposed to the statement proposed by China.
Tokyo reiterated on Tuesday that it intended to call for a vote on the binding resolution eventually.
"There is no change in our basic stance," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters.
Foreign Minister Taro Aso said separately that Japan wanted to see a decision on the resolution before the July 15-17 Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg and that the minimum content would be a ban on providing missile technology to North Korea.
China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters on Monday that a resolution branding North Korea a threat to international peace and security "could be used by member states to take actions which could make the situation even worse".
Asked if he meant military force, Wang said: "certainly."
China's draft contains nearly all the elements of Japan's rival resolution but is not legally binding.
The Japanese resolution invokes Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes it mandatory for all UN members and in certain circumstances lays the groundwork for military force.
BEIJING IN HOT SEAT
Beijing is now in the hot seat as the world watches to see whether it can use its influence with North Korea to rein in its prickly neighbour's missile and nuclear arms programmes.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday that she hoped Beijing could persuade Pyongyang to return to stalled six-party talks on its nuclear programmes, which also involve South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The United States and Japan also want North Korea to reinstate a moratorium on its missile launches.
In another sign of the search for a diplomatic solution, South Korea planned to focus on the missile launch and the North's nuclear programmes in North-South ministerial talks in the port city of Pusan from Tuesday.
North Korean officials were due in Pusan later in the day for discussions originally due to concentrate on economic matters.
Japan's ties with both South Korea and China have been chilly since Koizumi took office in 2001 and began visits to a war shrine his critics see as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
The missile tests have widened the rift between Seoul and Tokyo, especially. South Korea's presidential office accused Japan at the weekend of over-reacting to the launches. On Tuesday, it called remarks by Japanese leaders over the crisis reckless and arrogant.
Koreans and Japanese have a history of centuries of animosity, most recently stemming from Japan's harsh colonisation of the peninsula in the early 20th century.
In 1998, North Korea launched a long-range missile which flew over Japan before splashing into the sea.
Wednesday's test-firing of no fewer than seven missiles has rekindled a debate in Japan over whether Tokyo should develop the capability to make pre-emptive strikes and whether these would violate its pacifist constitution.
