China should put more pressure on N Korea: US

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">NEW YORK: China should exert more pressure to help defuse growing tensions with North Korea, a move that would strengthen US-Chinese relations, a top US State Department official said on Thursday.<br />In comments to the National Committee on US-China Relations, State Department official Richard Haass said China has a lot at stake in the situation on the Korean peninsula and he hopes China''s leaders are engaging in "old fashioned diplomacy" in addition to their public declarations calling for North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program.<br />"I think China has a major, major stake in seeing this sorted out," said Haass.From the US perspective, "this is one of the ways that we are going to gauge whether China is prepared to enter into more of a strategic relationship with the United States."<br />"This is an interesting opportunity," said Haass, director of the State Department''s Policy Planning Staff. "I think it will tell us something about where China is in its foreign policy trajectory."<br />US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington on Thursday that the situation with North Korea was very serious and that Pyongyang had embarked on a "very dangerous course" in violating accords not to develop nuclear weapons.<br />A day earlier, North Korea rejected a call by the International Atomic Energy Agency to open its nuclear arms program to inspections.<br />Pyongyang has not confirmed or denied whether it has nuclear weapons. But it says it is entitled to have them despite treaty pledges to stay non-nuclear.<br />Haass said the possibility of regional instability should help persuade China''s leadership to exert greater influence on Pyongyang. China, which fought North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War, provides most of its fuel oil and non-aid food imports.<br />"It''s up to China to decide how it wants to use its influence and the Chinese for the most part tend to say that they don''t have a whole lot of it," Haass said.<br />But "just looking at the depth of bilateral interactions between Beijing and Pyongyang, one would think they probably have as much influence as anyone else."<br />Haass also said that unlike some observers, he was not alarmed by the relationship between Russia and China, which held a leaders'' summit in Beijing this week. The two countries issued a joint declaration after the summit urging North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program.<br />"When I see things like the Russians and the Chinese leaders meeting, this is not something that I worry about," he said. The two countries'' joint stance on North Korea, for example, is "a positive sign" that "shows that this is not simply an American concern," Haass said.<br />The New York-based National Committee on US-China Relations is a nonprofit educational organization promoting understanding between the two countries. It was founded by a group of scholars, civic, religious and business leaders.<br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Reuters</span> </div> </div>