China will continue to resist pressure from the US and others to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear weapons test, according to reports.

The US and its allies in East Asia have stepped up calls for Beijing to cut oil supplies to North Korea and curtail Pyongyang's access to banks.  The US wants China to impose crippling sanctions on its wayward neighbor as part of a larger international response to the North's nuclear weapons program.

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But Beijing officials close to China's President Xi Jinping have told the New York Times that the Chinese leader has not wavered from his view that destabilizing North Korea would only create chaos in the region.  Experts say Xi is unlikely to change his position.

"If North Korea becomes an enemy state, it would have plenty of ways to harm China," says Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. "Beijing cannot afford to have North Korea become permanently hostile."

This view is shared by Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who says China would rather continue its relations with Pyongyang than risk regional instability.

"A lot of people think China is the missing link, and if only it would get on board with sanctions, that North Korea would be compelled to give up its nuclear weapons," Glaser tells the Los Angeles Times. "The Chinese just don't look at it like that."

The pressure nonetheless continues. South Korea's President Park Geun-hye -- who has formed close ties with Xi -- earlier called on China to match its stern words over North Korea's nuclear ambitions with "necessary measures."

The US and South Korea are apparently working together to increase military pressure on Pyongyang.  In a recent press conference, a South Korean defense ministry spokesman said the two countries are discussing the "deployment of additional strategic assets" to the Korean Peninsula.

Some analysts have said that -- in military terminology -- the term "strategic assets" usually means nuclear weapons.

"We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, and actions such as this latest test only strengthen our resolve," US Secretary of State John Kerry told the press recently.

To further complicate matters, Chinese, American and South Korean officials say Xi's relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is fraught with distrust. The same officials insist that -- while the two leaders both hail from revolutionary families -- they have little else in common. 

"Xi comes from a very exacting training program where status comes from age," says former British diplomat Kerry Brown.  "Here we have this guy [Kim] who is 33, who has been to Geneva for a couple of years, who has got no executive experience whatsoever, basically running this parasitical economy, which isn't functioning very well."

The alleged animosity between the two heads of state is said to have started in 2013, after Kim oversaw his first nuclear test as North Korea's supreme leader. 

In a rare public rebuke apparently directed at Kim, Xi -- who had only months before assumed office as China's chief executive -- warned that no country should be allowed to throw the world into chaos for purely "selfish gain."

While China is North Korea's only remaining major ally -- and Xi is by far the most-traveled president in the history of China -- he has never visited North Korea, nor has he ever hosted a visit by the North Korean leader. 

In what some claim is a clear indication of his disapproval of Kim's policies, Xi has instead chosen to cultivate better relations with Park, the South Korean president.  China's chief executive flew to Seoul for a highly-publicized state visit in 2014. 

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