Officials from the United States, Japan and South Korea on Monday urged China to play a bigger role in dissuading North Korea from further human rights infringements.
"If we do not have China in the battle line of sanctions, the impact would be limited," Katsunobu Kato, the Japanese minister handling the issue of Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese, told a think tank event in Washington.
Kato said China still has enormous influence over North Korea given its "overwhelmingly" large amount of trade and the significantly heavy flow of money between the two countries.