North Korea has promised to abandon all nuclear weapons programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives under an agreement between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States reached in Beijing in 2005.

The deal has been stymied by Pyongyang’s failure to meet an end-2007 deadline to make a "complete and correct" declaration of all its nuclear programs.

“I’m expecting from China what I am expecting from others — that we will use all influence possible with the North Koreans to convey to them it's time to move forward,” Rice told reporters after meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

In addition to North Korea, Rice and Yang discussed efforts to impose new United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, stopping the violence in Sudan's Darfur region and United States concerns about human rights in China and Taiwan.