China and the United States have failed to reach an agreement on pressing issues concerning North Korea and Beijing's simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Speaking from Beijing, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that the two countries must find "a way forward" in their efforts to find a solution to both problems. 

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Kerry flew to China late Tuesday to meet with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and other senior officials in an effort to press the Chinese government for tougher sanctions against North Korea and discuss an agreement over China's activities in the South China Sea.

Beijing,  Pyongyang's sole major ally, had earlier criticized remarks made by an unnamed US official who said China should do more to curb North Korea's nuclear program.

The Chinese capital was the last stop on a three-day trip across Asia for the US state secretary, who had earlier said he hoped that his discussions with officials in Beijing would be "constructive." 

Crux and Origin

A senior state department official told reporters earlier this week that the most pressing item on Kerry's agenda was to find out the extent of China's willingness to punish North Korea for its insistence on continuing its banned nuclear weapons program.

"The secretary has made no secret either to the Chinese or to you, the media, of his conviction that there is much more that China can do by way of applying leverage," the official said.

China has maintained that previous US sanctions against North Korea have hardened Pyongyang's determination to proceed with its nuclear weapons program, and tougher sanctions would only serve to destabilize the impoverished country -- a situation China's President Xi Jinping wants to avoid.

"The origin and crux of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula has never been China," Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said earlier this month.  "The key to solving the problem is not China."

Bilateral Issue

Speaking about his meeting with Chinese officials, Kerry said that -- while China and the US had made good progress together on issues ranging from climate change and the fight against terrorism -- the two countries must work to find common ground on "several important issues."

Kerry told Wang that the two countries need to arrive at an agreement over China's "concerns and activities" in contested areas of the South China Sea, says a Reuters report. 

China is laying claim to almost all of the South China Sea, where an estimated $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes through each year.  Beijing is consequently trying to manage separate disputes with the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan, each of which has overlapping claims on the resource-rich waters.  

The US is currently encouraging unity among the 10 nations that comprise the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the face of China's increasingly muscular assertions over the contested territory.  Kerry had earlier this week met with officials in Laos and Cambodia to build support for the ASEAN effort.

The leaders of the ASEAN are scheduled to meet with US President Barrack Obama in Sunnydale, California, next month, and analysts say the South China Sea issue will likely be among the key items on the agenda.

China has meanwhile stood firmly by its position that any disputes over the South China Sea should be addressed bilaterally.   

Tagschina, US, north kores, South China Sea Dispute