China said today that it would support appropriate “punitive actions” against North Korea in response to its announcement of a nuclear test, a harsher step than it has been willing to take in the past. At South Korean ports today, freighters waited for word from Seoul about whether they could sail to the North with aid for flood victims in North Korea. The country’s ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, told reporters that “there has to be some punitive actions, but also I think that these actions have to be appropriate.” He said that the council needed to have a “firm, constructive, appropriate but prudent response to North Korea’s nuclear threat,” according to news services.
It was not clear whether Mr. GuangyaÂ’s remarks meant that China would support the resolution proposed by the United States, which calls for international inspections of all cargo going in or out of North Korea. But the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, gave an upbeat assessment of the Security CouncilÂ’s talks on North Korea today, even as he and other Bush administration officials sought to fend off criticism that North KoreaÂ’s apparent entry into the ranks of nuclear nations represented a failure of American policy.