(Associated Press) - A Chinese envoy met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and delivered a personal message from China's president on Thursday in the highest-level Chinese visit to its isolated ally since the North's nuclear test last week.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said he had no details of the message conveyed by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan in Pyongyang. He said Tang and Kim had "in-depth discussions" about the nuclear dispute, but gave no details of the conversation.
Tang, traveling as an envoy for President Hu Jintao, visited the North amid reports of a possible second test by the North and an Asian tour by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to push for support for U.N. sanctions, reports Trend.
Relations between North Korea and China, the main source of food and fuel aid to the North's decrepit economy, have deteriorated in recent years, and Beijing's influence over Pyongyang appears to be eroding.
"This is a very significant visit, against the backdrop of major changes on the Korean Peninsula," Liu said at a regular news briefing. "We hope China's diplomatic efforts ... will bear fruit."
Tang, a former foreign minister whose Cabinet post ranks above minister, was accompanied by Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and Wu Dawei, the Chinese envoy to six-nation talks on the North's nuclear program.
The nuclear talks have been stalled for a year because of a boycott by the North over U.S. financial sanctions. They involve the United States, host China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia.
Rice was to arrive in Beijing Friday for meetings with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and other Chinese officials. She also stopped in South Korea and Japan to push for full support for U.N. sanctions approved last week.
"We look forward to in-depth discussions with Secretary Rice and hope we can work toward easing the situation and achieve denuclearization through consultation and dialogue," Liu said.
The rush of diplomatic exchanges has sparked speculation that a larger conference was imminent. Liu said he could not confirm news reports of a planned meeting in Beijing of officials from the six governments engaged in talks over North Korea's nuclear program.
China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with power to veto U.N. actions, is traditionally reluctant to punish the North. But it voted last weekend for the resolution imposing sanctions in response to the Oct. 9 nuclear test.
Beijing has since warned its neighbor against taking any steps that would aggravate tensions.
However, Beijing's U.N. ambassador has indicated that inspectors will not board ships to search for equipment or material that can be used to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles. China and South Korea worry that the North would consider the action provocative.
The U.N. resolution "is a balanced resolution and the spirit must also be reflected in its implementation," Liu said. "The parties, while implementing it, should not try to expand the sanctions mandated by the resolution."
Liu said that while China will "implement in earnest" the sanctions, they were not an end in themselves.
"They are rather the means to an end, which is to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful way," he said.
Rice said she didn't mean to pressure the South to take any specific steps during her visit to President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
Rice and Ban expressed a united front Thursday against North Korea's nuclear test and in support of U.N. sanctions, but there were no signs that Seoul would immediately move to adopt Washington's hard-line approach to dealing with Pyongyang.