The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, stated during a regular press briefing on Thursday, “China is faithfully fulfilling its due international obligations.” This statement was in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency about President Yoon Suk-yeol’s remarks that China is not enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea “at all.”

Mao added, “We hope that all parties clearly recognize the symptoms of the Korean Peninsula issue and administer the appropriate remedy for those symptoms.” She used a Chinese idiom “to catch fish by climbing a tree” (緣木求魚), which means that it is impossible to succeed in a task because the ends and the means are not aligned. This likely reflects Beijing’s position that dialogue is needed to resolve North Korea’s nuclear weapons program rather than economic sanctions.