A Beijing envoy rejected calls by the United States and its allies for China to rein in its wayward ally North Korea and urged direct talks with the regime, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Ambassador Cheng Yonghua was speaking after the United States, South Korea and Japan urged China to clamp down on the communist regime which last month launched a deadly artillery attack on a South Korean island.

Chen told Japan's Asahi daily that China rejected attempts to "try to put the responsibility on China whenever something happens in North Korea".

"It is unreasonable," he was quoted as saying. "When they have something to say, they should hold direct dialogue with the North."

"They should not simply dictate that 'China should do it', without sitting at the table of dialogue," he said, reiterating China's stance that the crisis should be addressed in multi-national talks including North Korea.

Cheng also told the newspaper: "China has a traditionally friendly relationship with North Korea. It is an unfair interpretation to say Beijing has the power to influence (the North) based on that.

"China does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries."

North Korea on November 23 struck a South Korean island with artillery, claiming it was reacting to a military drill being staged there.

The first shelling of a civilian area in the South since the 1950-53 Korean war killed two civilians and two marines and wrecked almost 30 homes, while sharply heightening tensions in Northeast Asia.

China has since resisted pressure to come down hard on the regime of Kim Jong-Il, who this year twice visited the powerful neighbour that has given his isolated and impoverished country a lifeline of food and energy aid.

The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who was visiting Tokyo on Thursday, has accused China of ducking its responsibility to curb the North.

"The Chinese have enormous influence over the North, influence that no other nation on Earth enjoys. And yet, despite a shared interest in reducing tensions, they appear unwilling to use it," he said in Seoul Wednesday.

"Even tacit approval of Pyongyang's brazenness leaves all their neighbours asking what will be next."

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