China may face further isolation over the issue and the loss of its coveted image as a "responsible" regional peacemaker unless it gets tougher on its wayward neighbour, they said.

Beijing on Sunday called for international consultations in Beijing over North Korea's shelling of a South Korean island last week -- a proposal quickly rejected by the United States, South Korea and Japan.

Instead, the three allies will hold talks in Washington next week, in an apparent snub to Beijing, which had until recently been praised by the others for hosting long-running six-nation talks on North Korea's denuclearisation.

"The other parties are clearly no longer in a mood to talk. The question for them is what for? What good would it do?" said Jing-Dong Yuan, an associate professor of international security issues at the University of Sydney.

"Clearly China's cautious diplomacy on North Korea has not worked and the others are coming around to that."

China's call for talks came just prior to the release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks that suggested growing impatience among some Chinese officials with Pyongyang.

Four South Koreans including two civilians were killed in last week's shelling, which sparked global condemnation.

But China has refused to even acknowledge North Korean blame. It took the same approach with the sinking of a South Korean naval ship earlier this year that killed 46 sailors and was blamed on a torpedo attack by the North.

The incidents have served as a wake-up call for the United States and its allies, said Nicholas Eberstadt, a researcher with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

"They have been too willing to cling to the illusion of China as the honest broker on North Korea," Eberstadt told AFP.

"China has more or less come out of the closet this year as North Korea's de facto defence lawyer to the world. So one can see why there has been a rather muscular lack of enthusiasm (for Beijing's proposal on talks)."

As host of the frequently stalled six-nation nuclear talks since 2003 that also included the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia, China was held up as a regional leader for bringing North Korea to the table.

But given that Pyongyang has so far tested two atomic devices since 2006 and disclosed to US experts that it had a working uranium enrichment facility before the shelling, China's efforts have proven a "travesty," Eberstadt said.

China is North Korea's closest ally and the main source of support for the hardline government of Kim Jong-Il.

Analysts say it tolerates Pyongyang's nuclear drive for fear of destabilising the regime through too much pressure. Beijing fears a regime collapse could send refugees flooding across its border and leave a US-allied unified Korea on its doorstep, they say.

China's Communist government takes pains to portray itself both at home and abroad as a responsible, neutral power.

The proposal for talks may have been a bid to nip the issue in the bud and avoid the embarrassment of being seen as shielding a North Korean act of war at the UN Security Council, analysts said.

The United States has said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Washington in a show of "close coordination" to maintain stability on the Korean peninsula.

The talks are also intended to make clear to China that "if they wish to get back to the table, then they need to exert some pressure on North Korea," said Bonnie Glaser, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Chinese "want to be included. And (the US is) taking a series of measures in which we are really strengthening coordination with our allies, and this is not really in China's long-term interests," she said.

Yuan said the choices available to Beijing -- accepting a nuclear North Korea or a failed one -- are equally unattractive.

And China's policy was unlikely to change unless it received assurances from the United States and its allies that a Southern dominated reunified Korea wouldn't harm Beijing's strategic interests, he said.

"China is basically just buying time so it doesn't have to choose from a number of very bad options. Doing nothing now is actually more palatable than doing something," Yuan said.

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