China’s envoy on North Korean issues Liu Xiaoming said the United Nations Security Council should not add “fuel to the fire,” indicating his reluctance to back US efforts to pursue a new sanctions resolution following its recent ballistic missile test. Liu, who recently visited the United States and met White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell, posted on Twitter that the Security Council should play a “constructive role for the political settlement” of issues related to the Korean peninsula. “Any action it takes should be conducive to de-escalation and dialogue, instead of adding fuel to the fire,” he added. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-warns-un-not-add-093000276.html) The United States has been calling on China and Russia, both permanent veto-wielding members of the council, to cooperate in imposing tougher sanctions on North Korea, which test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in March, the first such launch since 2017. But US special envoy to North Korea Sung Kim told reporters on Wednesday that he cannot yet say “productive discussions” are taking place with the two countries.