South Korea’s main Six-Party Talks negotiator, Lim Sung Nam is meeting Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei in Beijing today.

Lim is reportedly in Beijing to discuss the risks posed by a 3rd North Korean nuclear test, which China has repeatedly said it opposes, and to request that the Chinese government use its influence to deter North Korea from going ahead with any test.

However, while China did sign up to the UN President’s Statement that followed the April 13th North Korean rocket launch and actively engaged in the process of applying sanctions to additional entities connected with the North’s missile and nuclear programs, it would only acquiesce to sanctions being applied to three new entities, rather than the approximately forty which the U.S., South Korea, Japan and the EU had suggested. As such, it is unclear how much effort Beijing would be willing to put into stopping a 3rd nuclear test.