CHINA’S Foreign Minister Wang Yi rejected the idea last night that it can tell North Korea to fall in line with orders from outside, calling for dialogue and compromise on all sides.

He urged North Korea to stop its nuclear and missile activities while appealing to the US and South Korea to refrain from provocative military exercises.

Mr Wang told a United Nations security council ministerial meeting in New York that “use of force … will only lead to bigger disasters.”

He stressed that the international community must remain committed to parallel progress on denuclearisation of the peninsula and upholding peace and stability.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres voiced alarm at the risk of military escalation, “including by miscalculation or misunderstanding.”

He condemned “in the strongest terms” Pyongyang’s repeated defiance of UN demands to cancel its nuclear and missile programmes, adding that commercial satellite images indicate that North Korea’s nuclear test site remains “in a state of readiness to conduct additional nuclear test explosions.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged new sanctions against North Korea, declaring that failure to act would be “catastrophic.” He said that the world community had to increase North Korea’s financial isolation.

Mr Tillerson threatened to sanction other countries that support Pyongyang’s illegal activities, adding that he looked forward to further action from China.

US President Donald Trump had earlier angered his South Korean ally by demanding that it renegotiate the existing “horrible” bilateral trade agreement and pay $1 billion (£770 million) for a new US anti-missile shield.