China resisted pressure Sunday from South Korea and Japan to censure North Korea publicly for the sinking of a warship, calling only for regional tensions over the incident to be defused.

Host President Lee Myung-Bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama teamed up at the two-day summit to nudge China's Premier Wen Jiabao to declare Pyongyang responsible for the March sinking of the South Korean corvette.

But Wen gave no sign that China is ready to back United Nations Security Council action against its ally over the sinking, which cost 46 lives.

"The urgent task now is to defuse the impact of the Cheonan incident, change the tense situation and avoid clashes," Wen told a joint press conference on the southern resort island of Jeju.

"China will actively communicate with relevant parties and lead the situation to help promote peace and stability in the region, which fits our common and long-term interests best."

South Korea announced reprisals including a trade cut-off after international investigators reported on May 20 that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo to sink the Cheonan.

The North denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war.

In Pyongyang on Sunday, 100,000 North Koreans held a rally accusing Seoul of heightening cross-border tensions over the sinking, according to the North's state broadcasting network monitored by Yonhap news agency.

Wen, whose country is the North's economic lifeline, has been cautious since arriving in South Korea Friday.

At a meeting with Lee that day he said Beijing would, before determining its position, review the results of the international investigation into the Cheonan's sinking but would not protect whoever was responsible.

Lee said in Jeju that he expected "wise co-operation" from neighbouring countries in handling the disaster.

According to his senior spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan, Lee also told the summit: "We are not afraid of war, but we do not want war either. We have no intention to go to war."

Hatoyama, whose government Friday announced new sanctions against the North, said the three leaders agreed that "this is a serious issue related to peace and stability in Northeast Asia".

South Korea, at least in public, appeared fairly satisfied with the outcome of the Jeju summit.

"The inclusion of those remarks on the Cheonan in the joint press announcement in itself has significance," Lee's spokesman said.

But Paik Haksoon, of the Sejong Institute think-tank, said Wen's comments "indicate that China is still questioning the authenticity and authority of the investigation."

"There would be no point in taking this issue to the UN Security Council without securing support from China in advance," Paik told AFP.

Numerous countries have condemned the North for the sinking, one of the worst military attacks on the South since the 1950-53 war.

The North says Seoul faked evidence to incite tensions and boost its support before local elections this week.

South Korea, the United States and Japan need the support of veto-wielding member China to sanction -- or, at least, to censure -- the North at the Security Council.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the top US military officer, said later Sunday he was concerned about a possible North Korean "follow-on" to the torpedo attack on the Cheonan.

The South's reprisals include preparations to resume cross-border loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts. The North has threatened to shell the loudspeakers if the broadcasts go ahead.

The North has cut all ties with the South, scrapped pacts aimed at averting accidental flare-ups along their disputed sea border and vowed to attack any intruding ships.

It has threatened to shut down a jointly run industrial park at Kaesong, the last reconciliation project still operating.

The South plans to send a letter to the chairman of the UN Security Council this week, an unidentified official told Yonhap news agency.

Japan's Hatoyama had promised to fully support Seoul when the case is referred to the council, his spokesman told AFP.

earlier related report
N.Korea rejects evidence over sinking of S. Korean ship
Seoul (AFP) May 29, 2010 - North Korea has flatly rejected evidence showing it torpedoed a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 lives, saying it does not even own a midget submarine allegedly used for the March attack.

The North's powerful National Defence Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Il, held a rare press conference on Friday and denied Pyongyang's involvement, according to official North Korean media.

Major General Pak Rim Su, director of the policy department of the NDC, said the North does not have a 130-tonne "Yeono (salmon)-class" submarine, which the South says torpedoed its 1,200-ton corvette, the Cheonan, in the Yellow Sea.

"We don't have anything like a 130-tonne Yeono-class submersible," Pak was quoted by Pyongyang's Chungang TV as telling reporters.

A multinational investigation led by Seoul concluded earlier this month that the March 26 sinking was caused by a torpedo attack from the North.

South Korean investigators said a Yeono class midget submarine had intruded into South Korean waters via international waters.

But Pak said: "It does not make any sense militarily that a 130-tonne submersible carrying a heavy 1.7-tonne torpedo travelled through the open sea into the South, sank the ship and returned home."

But South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted South Korean officials as saying the North's submarine fleet includes around 10 Yeono class submarines.

Pak also rebutted Seoul's allegation that salvaged fragments of the torpedo matched design specifications that appeared on brochures the North allegedly sent to an unidentified potential buyer of North Korean torpedoes.

"Who in the world would hand over torpedo designs while selling torpedoes?" he said.

But Yonhap quoted an unidentified senior government official as saying that the South got hold of brochures sent by a North Korean state-run trading company to a potential weapons buyer that contain design specifications of three types of torpedoes.

Senior Colonel Ri Son Gwon dismissed as a "fabrication" a serial number hand-written on a torpedo fragment reading "1 bun" or number one.

South Korea said the serial number handwritten in Korean was strong evidence of Pyongyang's involvement in the sinking.

"When we put serial numbers on weapons, we engrave them with machines," Ri said. "We use 'bun' only for football or basketball players," he said.

But South Korean investigators said the North also uses "bun" for numbering things to be assembled, attributing the information to defectors from North Korea.

Pak said the Seoul-led multinational team was not in a position to conduct an objective probe and attacked Seoul for rejecting Pyongyang's demand to allow its own experts to investigate the cause of the sinking.