Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have held talks in Pyongyang.
President Xi is in North Korea on a two-day state visit.
The visit is Mr Xi's first as Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) chief and Chinese head of state and also the first of its kind in 14 years and came as the two neighbouring countries are celebrating the 70th anniversary of their diplomatic ties.
China is North Korea's only major ally and the visit comes amid renewed tension on the Korean peninsula as the US seeks to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.
With the nuclear negotiations at a standstill, Mr Kim President Xi that he was "willing to be patient", Chinese state media reported, but wanted "the parties concerned" to meet him halfway.
At their formal talks between the two leaders, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, Mr Kim also told his Chinese counterpart that North Korea had taken "many positive measures to avoid a tense situation" over the past year, "but has not received positive responses from the relevant parties".
"This is not what the DPRK wants to see," CCTV cited him as adding.
Pyongyang wants to demonstrate to Donald Trump that it has China's support after Mr Trump and Mr Kim's second summit in Hanoi in February broke up without a deal.
President Xi told Mr Kim that he "positively evaluated" the North's efforts and was "willing to strengthen coordination and cooperation with the DPRK and all relevant parties".
China has fretted over being sidelined by diplomatic developments since last year, with President Trump going as far as declaring he had fallen "in love" with Mr Kim, and the comment was a clear assertion of Beijing's place in the negotiations.
Beijing looks to bolster its neighbour hit by UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes, a week before Mr Xi and US President Donald Trump meet amid a bitter trade dispute.
Mr Xi, whose entourage includes the head of China's state economic planner, will be in reclusive North Korea for two days, and could bring fresh support measures for its floundering, sanctions-bound economy.
President Xi welcomed by 21-gun salute
Kim Jong Un met President Xi at Pyongyang airport as he began a two-day state visit with his wife Peng Liyuan.
Portraits of the two leaders stood outside the terminal, pictures showed, and a 21-gun salute was fired before the pair drove into the capital together, standing in a convertible Mercedes Benz past tens of thousands of cheering residents lining the streets and more waving from their windows.
Pyongyang always puts on an impressive show when a foreign leader visits but in an unprecedented move, President Xi was welcomed at the Kumsusan Palace, the mausoleum where the preserved bodies of the North's founder Kim Il Sung and his successor Kim Jong Il, the grandfather and father of the current leader, lie in state.
The Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling party, devoted the top half of its front page to the visit, with a colour picture of President Xi, a day after it carried an article by him, also on the front page.
The show of amity belies a sometimes strained relationship, Mr Kim did not visit Beijing to pay his respects for more than six years after inheriting power.
Authorities have imposed tight restrictions on other media, with international journalists in Pyongyang not allowed to cover the visit, and no non-Chinese foreign media organisations given visas.
Beijing sees North Korea as a strategic buffer, keeping the 28,500 US troops in South Korea far from its borders, and Mr Xi's trip was to include a stop at Pyongyang's Friendship Tower, which commemorates the millions of Chinese troops who saved Kim Il Sung's forces from defeat during the Korean War.
