China appointed Ning Fukui, the former Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia, to act as the country's ambassador on the issue of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.
Ning was deputy director of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry from July 1995 to April 2000.
Beijing hosted the first round of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue in August, which included South Korea, North Korea, Japan, the US and Russia, and there were hopes that these would resume some time early in 2004.