Responding to questions about escalating tensions between the US and North Korea, President Donald Trump declined to delve into specifics about his plans, but said he is sending an "armada" toward the Korean peninsula.
However the United States is trying to push for stronger action in an effort to intimidate North Korea into falling into line. In a series of tweets on Tuesday, he said he told Xi that any efforts by China to rein in North Korea would help improve the conditions of a trade deal with the U.S. The two met face-to-face at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last week.
Trump had earlier tweeted on Tuesday that US-China would have better trade deals if China solved "the North Korea problem".
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in the USA last week, and came away without any public breakthroughs on trade or how to cope with North Korea's rapidly advancing missile and nuclear programs.
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with Donald Trump on Wednesday, urging dialogue to resolve concerns over North Korea's nuclear program after the US leader dispatched warships to the region.
The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, pictured in 2011, is part of the Navy strike group that was recently shifted to a position near the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea responded to the warships by warning the United States it is "ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S.", according to a foreign ministry spokesperson quoted by the Korean Central News Agency.
The US show of force prompted the North to declare it was "ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US".
Trump appeared to be responding to a statement from a North Korean spokesman threatening "catastrophic consequences" for the US maneuvers, adding that the isolated country is "ready" for "any mode" of war. "And President Xi and President Trump agreed that that is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula".
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Trump and other U.S. officials have repeatedly called on China to leverage its status as North Korea's biggest economic partner and source of food and fuel aid to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
"On the other hand, if China continues to adhere to its middle road strategy of supporting sanctions but not pressuring North Korea too much, it may be playing with borrowed time as the US patience wears thin".
North Korea is also believed to be preparing to test a nuclear weapon in the coming days.
Thousands of troops and top military officials gathered in Pyongyang on Monday to pledge loyalty to leader Kim Jong-Un ahead of his grandfather's birth anniversary, state media said.
The U.S. and other foreign governments have long overestimated China's ability to affect Pyongyang's behavior, said Ruan Zongze, a U.S. relations expert at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank run by the foreign ministry.
The move highlights the Trump administration's determination to curb North Korea's weapons programme, which has rapidly grown over the past few months.
Meanwhile, MI6 head Sir John Sawers had warned that tensions with North Korea were actually a much bigger threat to world peace than the war in Syria. This, he said, will be necessary because the issues that divide China and the United States are deep-seated.
Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, said that there might be another provocative behaviour from North Korea.
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