What is China’s present position on N Korea possibly building/testing nukes? Don’t care? support it? don’t want it?
Chinese Foreign Ministry statements have called for supporting a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, maintaining peace and stability, solving the problem through dialogue (meaning at this point the 6 party multiparty talks but direct US-NK talks might be acceptable too), and preserving the Agreed Framework.
Basically, they hate the problem and want it to go away. They have the power to force NK to do so, and they despise Kin Jong Il, but they can’t publicly denounce him for fear it would cause chaos. At worst, NK gets eaten by SK, and China winds up with a hostile neighbor there.
They’d probably prefer direct US/NK talks, because it implied that NK’s situation is a purely US problem which we have responsibility for. They tried to trick us into doing this by pulling out of scheduled talks minutes before they began a few years ago, but it didn’t work and our diplomats didn’t attend at all.