Good answer, except that....
China was already involved in 4-party peace talks (US, China, NK, SK) and in 1998 was urging (possibly, only one link found, and that was a ref to TASS....) urged the United States and the DPRK to continue to engage in constructive dialogue and consultations to resolve the nuclear issue in North Korea.
According to same site - "Throughout the late 1990's, Chinese government supported continued dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea, but Beijing was publicly reluctant to become too actively involved in the Four-Party Talks, which were meant to facilitate discussions through a series of multilateral and bilateral talks. "