US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Beijing on the second leg of a regional tour aimed at breaking an impasse in nuclear negotiations with North Korea.
In a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Ms Rice urged China to use all its influence with North Korea to ensure the reclusive communist state moves ahead quickly with nuclear disarmament.
She later met Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao.
‘I'm expecting from China what I'm expecting from others – that we will use all influence possible with the North Koreans to convince them that it's time to move forward,’ Ms Rice said.
‘We are at the cusp of something very special here. Now is the time to move on, time to continue the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, which is in everyone's interest.’
Ms Rice, who will go on to Japan after her China visit, attended the inauguration yesterday of South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and held talks with him.
President Lee agreed to work more closely with Washington to denuclearise North Korea and insisted the move would not raise inter-Korean tensions.
The six-nation talks on nuclear disarmament, which began in 2003, include North and South Korea, the US, China, Russia and Japan.
A landmark deal reached in February last year offered North Korea a million tonnes of fuel oil, normalised ties with the US and Japan, and a formal peace treaty, if it scrapped all nuclear programmes and material.
In the current phase, North Korea agreed to disable its atomic plants and fully declare all nuclear programmes by the end of last year. But it missed the deadline amid a dispute with the US over the declaration.
Ms Rice has insisted the US would keep its commitments, as long as North Korea did.
US symphony plays in Pyongyang
Meanwhile, the New York Philharmonic has played a historic performance in the North Korean capital Pyongyang.
The concert comes during a visit aimed at improving US ties with the communist country.
The groundbreaking performance by the oldest US symphony orchestra comes amid the tense stand-off over the North's nuclear programme. The US delegation is the largest ever to visit North Korea.
They played both the North Korean anthem and the US national anthem to a packed 1,500-seat hall.
