The United States sees China's leverage as key to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday, two days after a successful North Korean missile test-launch.
"I'm not going to talk about various policy options that we may or may not consider, but I will say this: we are certainly engaged right now in looking at a number of measures - political, economic, security - to deal with these provocative acts by the DPRK, and dangerous acts in many cases," he said, using the acronym for North Korea's official country name.
"So we are going to be raising the level of engagement with China on this issue. China really is the key in dealing with the North Korea issue. 90 percent of the DPRK's trade is with China, so clearly there is a lot more leverage that China has, and we would like China to use."
