Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. (Photo : Getty Images)
According to the White House, North Korea can now be considered a "strategic liability for China" after its capital, Pyongyang, conducted missile tests in the Japanese sea, NDTV.com reported.
The U.S. government also warned that this could be a threat to the region's stability.
North Korea's "missile tests" were expected to become a prominent topic in the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in Florida.
"It is now quite clearly a strategic liability, and it is one that is having an impact on the region. It is one that has the potential to destabilize not only the peninsula but really the region as a whole," Matt Pottinger, Senior Director for Asia at the National Security Council at the White House, said during a press conference.
"In terms of an area of cooperation, of course, we would like to see China working closely with the United States to address the menace emanating from North Korea--their weapons programs, the provocations that we're seeing every week; missile launches, including one that we just had not too many hours ago," he further stated.
Pottinger also believes that "North Korea long ago ceased to be a strategic asset for China."
Susan Thornton, acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was also at the news conference.
According to her, the time for negotiating with North Korea is now over.
"Strategic patience has run out. This problem has really become very urgent, and it is, destabilizing to the entire region and actually further than the region now, reaches across the globe with the progress that North Korea is making in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile," Thornton shared.
The issue of taking action against North Korea has become an urgent matter for the U.S., she noted, adding that the American Ambassador to the United Nations "has convened a ministerial meeting in New York later this month to talk and galvanize a lot more support from our other partners and allies around the world."
The White House official told reporters that a "provocative" measure should now be done to "change the situation and get some results."
The U.S. hopes that China can be involved in this initiative.
"We'll certainly be talking to them about that in the next couple of days. We think they have a lot to contribute, and so we'll see where we get on that," she said.
