The contrast could not have been more striking. Some delegates at China’s National People’s Congress last week were heatedly discussing whether Beijing should scrap its alliance with North Korea. 两者的反差再明显不过。上周，在中国的全国人大全体会议上，一些与会代表活跃地讨论北京方面应不应该放弃中朝同盟。

But when Yang Jiechi, foreign minister, faced the press at the weekend, he did not divert an inch from Beijing’s traditional policy script. “We have always believed that sanctions are not the end of the Security Council’s actions, nor are they the way to fundamentally resolve the issues in question,” he said. Mr Yang – again – urged calm and restraint on all sides. 但中国外长杨洁篪周末在中外记者面前重复了北京方面的传统政策套话。“中方始终认为，制裁不是安理会行动的目的，也不是解决有关问题的根本办法，”杨洁篪表示。他再一次敦促有关各方保持冷静和克制。

Following the adoption last Thursday of a new round of UN sanctions against North Korea, all eyes are on China to see how far it will go in cutting support for its long-time ally. 自上周四联合国通过新一轮对朝制裁以来，世人的目光投向中国，看中国将在何种程度上减少对其传统盟友的支持。

“Beijing is the key actor with regard to all the banking and trans-shipping issues. . . If the Chinese government chooses to enforce resolution 2094 rigorously, it could seriously disrupt, if not end, North Korea’s proliferation activities,” write Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard from the Peterson Institute for International Economics on their blog. “北京在所有银行以及中转问题上是关键角色……如果中国政府有意认真执行第2094号决议，它可以严重打乱（如果不是完全终止的话）朝鲜的扩散活动，”彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)的马库斯•诺兰(Marcus Noland)和史蒂芬•哈格德(Stephan Haggard)在他们的博客上写道。

“[The new resolution] is unlikely to advance the denuclearisation agenda unless China decides to treat them as a floor rather than a ceiling and really apply the pressure.” “（新的决议）不太可能推进弃核议程——除非中国决定把它们当作一个下限，而非上限，真正施加压力。”

The contrast between increasingly public challenges to Beijing’s dated alliance with Pyongyang and its cautious official response underlines the dilemma China finds itself in. A foreign policy with the main goal of maintaining stability appears to be failing in the case of North Korea, and now the remaining options seem to pose the risk of making things even worse. “Chaos in the Korean peninsula would put China’s security under huge pressure,” says Cai Jian, deputy director of the Korea Center at Fudan university in Shanghai. 中国各界越来越公开地挑战早已过时的中朝同盟关系，这与谨慎的官方回应形成反差，进而突显中国所处的两难困境。以保持稳定为主要目标的外交政策，似乎在朝鲜问题上遭遇失败，而剩下的选择似乎有可能使局面变得更加糟糕。“朝鲜半岛的混乱局面，将使中国的安全受到巨大压力，”复旦大学韩国研究中心副主任蔡建表示。

He says China will enforce the latest sanctions “a little bit more strictly than in the past but not too strictly”. 蔡建预计，中国在执行最新的制裁措施方面“将比以往稍稍严厉一些，但不会过于严厉”。

There is a growing consensus in Beijing that the North Korean government’s brinkmanship is harming Beijing’s interests and that just repeating past appeals to return to the negotiating table is having no effect. 中国各界有一个逐渐形成的共识，那就是朝鲜政府的边缘政策正在损害中国的利益，而仅仅重复回到谈判桌的呼吁没有产生任何效果。

Deng Yuwen, deputy editor of the Communist party publication Study Times, wrote in the Financial Times earlier this month that Beijing should “abandon North Korea” as Pyongyang had long lost its supposed strategic value as a “buffer”, and China’s interests and values were more aligned with the west. 中共中央党校《学习时报》副编审邓聿文本月早些时候在英国《金融时报》撰文表示，中国应当“抛弃”朝鲜，因为平壤早就失去了其作为“缓冲”的所谓战略价值，而中国现在的利益和价值与西方更为相符。

The government has been careful not to back such radical change but it is quietly adjusting its attitude. Although China’s support for the latest Security Council resolution is no sharp change following its backing for three earlier rounds of sanctions against North Korea, diplomats say it has been more engaged in consultations, especially with the US. 中国政府小心翼翼地不支持这种大幅度转变，但它在悄悄地调整态度。虽然中国对安理会(Security Council)最新决议的支持并不标志着中国的立场有重大转变（中国此前也曾支持过3轮针对朝鲜的制裁措施），但外交官们表示，这一次中国在磋商中（尤其是在与美国的磋商中）更加投入。

“Although the US and China differ in their political tactics towards North Korea, they both advocate safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula,” says Wei Zhijiang, director of the Korea Studies Institute at Sun Yat-sen University. “The two should work together to control the crisis on the Korean peninsula. In other words, there is a lot of room for strategic co-operation between China and the US on the Korean peninsula problem.” “虽然美国和中国在对朝政治战术上存在差异，但中美两国都提倡维护朝鲜半岛的和平与稳定，”中山大学韩国研究所所长魏志江表示。“双方应当共同努力，控制朝鲜半岛的危机。换句话说，中美在朝鲜半岛问题上有很大的战略合作空间。”

Beijing’s problem lies in how to do that. Chinese diplomats last week rejected almost angrily suggestions of a US-China deal on a draft resolution. Chinese foreign policy experts fret that taking too hard a line against North Korea or being seen as openly siding with Washington could trigger either more bellicose acts from Pyongyang or even the regime’s collapse – both scenarios viewed by Beijing as worse than the status quo. 北京方面的问题在于如何开展合作。中国外交官上周近乎愤怒地否认有关美中就决议草案达成一致的说法。中国外交政策专家担心，对朝鲜采取过于强硬的立场，或者被视为公开站到美国一边，可能要么引发平壤方面作出更加好战的举动，要么引发朝鲜政权崩溃——在北京方面看来，这两种情形都比现状更加糟糕。

Chinese academics point to incidents where Beijing has been reluctant to turn against regimes it has long worked with, even where there was less at stake than in North Korea. China’s insistence that it must not interfere in other nations’ internal affairs has made it, alongside Russia, a de facto backer of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and exposed it to blame for the failure to end the country’s civil war. 中国学者援引一些事例说明，北京方面不愿和自己曾长期合作的政权翻脸，即便对涉及的利害少于中朝之间的情况下也是如此。中国对于不干涉别国内政的坚持，使其与俄罗斯一道，成为巴沙尔•阿萨德(Bashar al-Assad)总统的叙利亚政权事实上的支持者，也使中国因叙利亚内战持续而受到指责。

In Libya, Chinese companies saw their operations disrupted following the overthrow of Muammer Gaddafi, as Beijing had backed his regime until the very end. “This was inconvenient, but we stuck to our principles,” says a Chinese diplomat. “In the case of North Korea, we are bound by more than just principles: we have a friendship treaty. So we can only make the most subtle of adjustments.” 在利比亚，中国企业的业务在穆阿迈尔•卡扎菲(Muammer Gaddafi)被推翻后受到冲击，因为北京方面支持卡扎菲政权至最后一刻。“这带来不便，但我们坚持了自己的原则，”一名中国外交官表示。“在朝鲜问题上，制约我们的不只是原则：我们有一项友好条约。因此我们只能做出最细微的调整。”