Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Wednesday that "diplomatic means" can maintain regional stability, with tensions in Northeast Asia spiking over North Korea's nuclear test and rocket launch.

"It is up to regional countries to maintain stability and harmony," Li said in response to a question about North Korea's provocations and regional security issues. Li, speaking at a press conference at the end of the country's rubber-stamp parliament session, did not mention North Korea by name, but stressed that China needs a stable regional environment for its development.

Li said, "Some differences may arise between neighbors, but we believe that, as long as we treat each other with sincerity and seek peaceful settlement to differences with diplomatic means, regional stability will be maintained."

North Korea, the only treaty ally of China, has been slapped with new U.N. sanctions for its fourth nuclear test and rocket launch earlier this year.

In an escalation of warlike rhetoric, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his country to soon conduct a nuclear warhead test and test-launch ballistic missiles.

Such a nuclear threat is unusual, even though North Korea has periodically ramped up threatening language against the ongoing joint military drills between South Korea and the United States.

"As for countries from outside of the region, like the United States, we think the United States will never leave the Asia-Pacific region and all countries can work together to enhance cooperation and properly handle differences," Li said.

While supporting the new U.N. sanctions, China has proposed to pursue peace treaty talks with North Korea in tandem with denuclearization negotiations.

Signing a peace treaty, which would replace the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War, has been one of North Korea's long-running goals, but South Korea and the U.S. have demanded the North abandon its nuclear program first. (Yonhap)