After North Korea conducted its second nuclear test on Monday, the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting that condemned the test and began searching for a new resolution. Russia, which chairs the council, as well as the other permanent members of the council, including the U.S. and China, are strongly criticizing the North. The atmosphere is quite different than in April, when North Korea fired a long-range rocket: then the Security Council failed to arrive at a resolution and issued only a chairman's statement.

In a phone call with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama said a strong resolution from the Security Council was necessary.

China said it "strongly opposes" North Korea's nuclear test. But it also stressed the need to "maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia," hinting at its desire to set certain limits to the level of pressure the council puts on the North.

UN Security Council Resolution 1718, adopted after North Korea's first nuclear test in October of 2006 and focused on economic sanctions, has been ineffective. It was nonbinding, and UN member countries did not participate in its implementation. China in particular claimed that the sanctions could corner North Korea and have negative repercussions and continued to offer its ally economic aid.

Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger told Fox TV on May 19 that if China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. do not exert enough pressure on North Korea and fail to convince it to give up its nuclear weapons program, there would be no point in supporting an international framework. Kissinger advised Obama on his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons along with former state secretaries George Shultz, former senate armed services committee head Sam Nunn, and former defense secretary William Perry. Kissinger said the task facing the international community is to remove North Korea's nuclear weapons and to come up with penalties and rewards, as well as a balance of diplomacy and pressure to make that happen.

There are limitations to American power to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. If the military option is taken off the table, then the options in terms of punishment and pressure are limited. The role of China, North Korea's biggest trading partner and greatest supplier of energy and food, becomes that much bigger. Unless China takes part, no sanctions against North Korea would succeed and any resolution by the Security Council would be meaningless.

China needs to take a firm stance not only because of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, with major responsibilities in maintaining global security, but because allowing North Korea to develop nuclear weapons and missiles could be detrimental to its own diplomatic interests. Beijing will not be able to ignore the fact that Japan, which has been wary of China's growing military might, has used North Korea's provocation as an excuse to bolster its own military power. It would be in China's best interests to curb North Korea, which has triggered an anachronistic arms race in Northeast Asia.