In yet another round of an increasingly tense debate over how to deal with Pyongyang, China has rejected the US government's claim that Beijing's policies toward North Korea have failed.

Responding to Washington's recent criticisms of the Chinese government's policies toward Pyongyang, a Chinese official fired back with a stern reproach, suggesting that it is the US, not China, that is to blame for North Korea's provocative actions.

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Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs, said on Friday last week that it is the responsibility of all countries -- not just China -- to convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea sparked an international uproar last week after it detonated a nuclear weapon in a test blast that sent tremors all the way to China's border towns.

"The origin and crux of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula has never been China," Hua said during a press briefing in Beijing.  "The key to solving the problem is not China."

Hua made the statement in apparent reference to the assertion of many in China that US efforts to isolate and punish North Korea over the past ten years are to blame for Pyongyang's determination to maintain a stockpile of nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

Officials in Washington have meanwhile said the US government is drafting a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution to further curtail international trade with North Korea.  The draft resolution is said to include a partial ban on allowing the entry of North Korean ships into ports around the world.

"What we want to see is better teeth in the enforcement," one US official, who declined to be named, told the New York Times.

The US and its allies in the UNSC are said to be urging China to impose tough sanctions on North Korea for its latest nuclear test blast.  China is North Korea's main ally and biggest trading partner, and US officials insist that Beijing is in a unique position to discourage North Korea's provocative actions by cutting off its oil supply or disrupting its financial transactions.   

But US secretary of state John Kerry said last Thursday that China's diplomatic efforts to bring North Korea under control have failed.

"China had a particular approach that it wanted to make, and we agreed and respected to give them space to be able to implement that," Kerry told a press conference in Washington. "That has not worked."

TagsNorth Korea, US