(Bloomberg) -- North Korea’s destabilizing behavior should be a major concern for Beijing, a senior State Department official said Tuesday. 

China should be condemning North Korea’s “deepening cooperation” with Russia, including shipping ballistic missiles to President Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine, said Jung Pak, the US senior official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as North Korea is officially known. 

“The DPRK issue is China’s problem, as well,” Pak said in an interview. “It’s not just our problem. China has a role to play and it has influence.”

Her comments reflect long-running frustration in Washington over China’s unwillingness to help influence Pyongyang’s behavior. China has long been North Korea’s biggest benefactor.

Pak said it was “too soon to say” whether nascent US-China cooperation in the wake of the meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping late last year would help the administration make any progress on North Korea. 

While 2024 began with several ominous statements from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — including eliminating the concept of peaceful unification from his state’s national policy and saying he has the legal right to annihilate South Korea — Pak said there’s no evidence that North Korea is taking a new, more aggressive posture toward South Korea.  

“I want to be clear that we don’t see any signs of any direct action, military action from the DPRK,” she said. “We have been on guard for any kind of potential actions from the DPRK — strategic, tactical and otherwise, in cyberspace.”

Earlier: Kim Jong Un Says He Has Lawful Right to Destroy South Korea

While Kim has continued to ignore long-standing US diplomatic overtures to discuss a range of topics, Pak said she supports recently reported moves by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan to hold a summit with Kim over the sensitive issue of Japanese abducted by North Korea. 

“We encourage any kind of dialog,” she said. 

Asked whether Kim favors his daughter as his chosen successor — something South Korea’s spy agency has said it now believes —  Pak said it’s “too soon to tell.” 

“What’s obvious is that he wants her front and center,” she said, adding that North Korea’s leader remained unpredictable. “There are always surprises, but we want to make sure that we minimize those surprises.”

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