Lee Jae-Won/Reuters
United States Army Patriot missile batteries were placed at an American air base in Osan, south of Seoul. Tension has risen in the region as North Korea continues to make bellicose threats.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, detecting what it sees as a shift in decades of Chinese support for North Korea, is pressuring China's new president, Xi Jinping, to crack down on the regime in Pyongyang or face a heightened American military presence in its region.
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In a flurry of exchanges that included a recent phone call from President Obama to Mr. Xi, administration officials said, they have briefed the Chinese in detail about American plans to upgrade missile defenses and other steps to deter the increasingly belligerent threats made by North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong-un.
China, which has been deeply suspicious of the American desire to reassert itself in Asia, has not protested publicly or privately as the United States has deployed ships and warplanes to the Korean Peninsula. That silence, American officials say, attests to both Beijing's mounting frustration with the North and the recognition that its reflexive support for Pyongyang could strain its ties with Washington.
"The timing of this is important," Tom Donilon, Mr. Obama's national security adviser, said in an interview. "It will be an important early exercise between the United States and China, early in the term of Xi Jinping and early in the second term of President Obama."
While administration officials cautioned that Mr. Xi has been in office for only a few weeks and that China has a history of frustrating the United States in its dealings with North Korea, Mr. Donilon said he believed that China's position was "evolving."
Judging whether China has genuinely changed course on North Korea is tricky: Beijing has appeared to respond to American pressure before, only to backtrack later. China, the North's only strong ally, has long feared the United States would capitalize on the fall of the North Korean leadership by expanding American military influence on the Korean Peninsula.
Nor has China given clues about its intentions in its public statements, voicing grave concern about the rising tensions while being careful not to elevate Mr. Kim's stature.
Chinese analysts say there are internal debates within the Communist Party and the military about how to deal with Mr. Kim, and how strongly to enforce the United Nations' economic sanctions that China signed on to last month.
The White House said it was encouraged by how swiftly China had supported the sanctions, which followed a North Korean nuclear test and a missile launch. But some diplomats and analysts say China has dragged its feet in enforcing them.
In a meeting with two senior American officials who traveled to Beijing two weeks ago to try to persuade China to enforce new banking restrictions on North Korea, Chinese banking leaders showed little sign of compliance, said Marcus Noland, an expert on North Korea at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
"But I wouldn't expect them publicize it," even if they did move ahead, Mr. Noland added.
Many analysts say the sanctions cannot succeed without China's cooperation, since it has close trade ties with North Korea and has in the past chosen to keep its government afloat by providing fuel and significant aid.
China continues to say economic sanctions will not work. A Chinese diplomat who is involved in policy on North Korea said recently that he thought China would enforce the new United Nations sanctions to a point but would not go as far as the Obama administration wanted.
Even if China does cooperate, it is unclear how far North Korea might bend; North Korea ignored China's entreaties not to conduct the nuclear test in February that set off the latest conflict with the United States and South Korea.
In the coming weeks, the White House will send a stream of senior officials to China to press its case, starting with Secretary of State John Kerry, who will travel to Beijing next Saturday, on an Asian tour that will also take him to South Korea and Japan.
In the short run, officials said, the administration wants the Chinese to be rigorous in customs inspections to interdict the flow of banned goods to North Korea. More broadly, it wants China to persuade Mr. Kim to cease his provocations and agree to negotiations on giving up his nuclear program.
On Friday, North Korea stoked tensions further by advising Russia, Britain and other countries that they might want to evacuate their embassies in Pyongyang in case of hostilities, according to Russian and British officials. Analysts dismissed the warning as a ploy to frighten the United States and its allies, perhaps to finally force concessions.
Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Beijing, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.
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