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9 December 2010
Last updated at 02:52 ET
China's top diplomat has met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, amid rising tension in the region.
Chinese state news agency Xinhua described the meeting between Dai Bingguo and Mr Kim as "candid" and said they had "reached a consensus", but gave no details.
Last month North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing four people.
US top general Adm Mike Mullen has said China was "enabling" its North Korean ally's "reckless behaviour".
A senior team of US diplomats is to visit Beijing next week for further talks about the tensions sparked by North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong island.
China, which supplies food and fuel to North Korea, has so far refused to condemn the attack on Yeonpyeong, the first attack of its kind on South Korean civilians since the end of the Korean war in 1953.
China fought on North Korea's side during the war.
'Deter North Korea' On Wednesday Adm Mullen called on Japan, the US and South Korea to stand together against North Korea.
"I do have a real sense of urgency about addressing the potential in terms of the Korean peninsula that is much better addressed with all of us together, in terms of showing strength and getting to a point where we can deter North Korean behaviour," he said.
Both Japan and South Korea have carried out joint military exercises with the US in the past few weeks.
China has criticised those exercises as an attempt at US containment in an area Beijing sees as its own responsibility.
"I actually believe that because these provocations continue, and seemingly at a more frequent interval, that the danger is going up and that steps must be taken to ensure that they stop," said Adm Mullen at a news conference in Tokyo.
"Much of that volatility is owed to the reckless behaviour of the North Korean regime, enabled by their friends in China," he said.
"There is too much at stake for this sort of myopia."
He added that South Korea needed to respond with restraint.
Continue reading the main story North Korea: Timeline 2010
26 March: South Korean warship, Cheonan, sinks, killing 46 sailors
20 May: Panel says a North Korean torpedo sank the ship; Pyongyang denies involvement
July-September: South Korea and US hold military exercises; US places more sanctions on Pyongyang
29 September: North holds rare party congress seen as part of father-to-son succession move
29 October: Troops from North and South Korea exchange fire across the land border
12 November: North Korea shows US scientist new - undeclared - uranium enrichment facility
23 November: North shells island of Yeonpyeong, killing at least four South Koreans
27 Nov-1 Dec: South Korea and US hold joint military drills
6-12 Dec: South Korea stages live-fire military exercises
'Mocked' North Korea has been defending its shelling of Yeonpyeong as a response to extensive live-firing from the South.
It accused Seoul and Washington of "persistently escalating tension", adding that South Korea had "persistently mocked at the (North's) sincere efforts to improve the inter-Korean relations and turned away their faces from them".
South Korea "fired as many as thousands of shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK (North Korea) side", the state news agency quoted the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea report as saying.
"This reckless act was obviously a deliberate provocation to prompt the DPRK to take a military counter-action," it said.
As the latest US-South Korean talks were being held, North Korea conducted military drills in the area.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been extremely high since North Korea's 23 November shelling of Yeonpyeong, a small South Korean island close to the disputed western sea border.
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Chinese state news agency Xinhua described the meeting between Dai Bingguo and Mr Kim as "candid" and said they had "reached a consensus", but gave no details.
Last month North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing four people.
US top general Adm Mike Mullen has said China was "enabling" its North Korean ally's "reckless behaviour".
A senior team of US diplomats is to visit Beijing next week for further talks about the tensions sparked by North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong island.
China, which supplies food and fuel to North Korea, has so far refused to condemn the attack on Yeonpyeong, the first attack of its kind on South Korean civilians since the end of the Korean war in 1953.
China fought on North Korea's side during the war.
'Deter North Korea' On Wednesday Adm Mullen called on Japan, the US and South Korea to stand together against North Korea.
"I do have a real sense of urgency about addressing the potential in terms of the Korean peninsula that is much better addressed with all of us together, in terms of showing strength and getting to a point where we can deter North Korean behaviour," he said.
Both Japan and South Korea have carried out joint military exercises with the US in the past few weeks.
China has criticised those exercises as an attempt at US containment in an area Beijing sees as its own responsibility.
"I actually believe that because these provocations continue, and seemingly at a more frequent interval, that the danger is going up and that steps must be taken to ensure that they stop," said Adm Mullen at a news conference in Tokyo.
"Much of that volatility is owed to the reckless behaviour of the North Korean regime, enabled by their friends in China," he said.
"There is too much at stake for this sort of myopia."
He added that South Korea needed to respond with restraint.
Continue reading the main story North Korea: Timeline 2010
26 March: South Korean warship, Cheonan, sinks, killing 46 sailors
20 May: Panel says a North Korean torpedo sank the ship; Pyongyang denies involvement
July-September: South Korea and US hold military exercises; US places more sanctions on Pyongyang
29 September: North holds rare party congress seen as part of father-to-son succession move
29 October: Troops from North and South Korea exchange fire across the land border
12 November: North Korea shows US scientist new - undeclared - uranium enrichment facility
23 November: North shells island of Yeonpyeong, killing at least four South Koreans
27 Nov-1 Dec: South Korea and US hold joint military drills
6-12 Dec: South Korea stages live-fire military exercises
'Mocked' North Korea has been defending its shelling of Yeonpyeong as a response to extensive live-firing from the South.
It accused Seoul and Washington of "persistently escalating tension", adding that South Korea had "persistently mocked at the (North's) sincere efforts to improve the inter-Korean relations and turned away their faces from them".
South Korea "fired as many as thousands of shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK (North Korea) side", the state news agency quoted the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea report as saying.
"This reckless act was obviously a deliberate provocation to prompt the DPRK to take a military counter-action," it said.
As the latest US-South Korean talks were being held, North Korea conducted military drills in the area.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been extremely high since North Korea's 23 November shelling of Yeonpyeong, a small South Korean island close to the disputed western sea border.
Powered by WizardRSS | Best Membership Site Software