A secret dinner in Beijing rekindled the fresh round of talks to resolve the Korean nuclear issue to begin Tuesday.

The dinner between diplomats of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), was arranged by China as part of its intensive shuttle diplomacy to bring the six-party talks back to normal track.

As host of the talks between China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan, China has been widely praised for its role in the previous three rounds that began in 2003.

Little was known of China's efforts for the fourth round.

Tang Jiaxuan, China's state councilor in charge of foreign policy, visited the DPRK as the special envoy of Chinese President Hu Jintao three days after the DPRK announced it would return to the talks following the secret Beijing dinner.

"Tang's visit as part of China's shuttle diplomacy was to open the deadlock of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue," said Jin Linbo, a professor with the China Institute of International Studies.

"The DPRK and the United States are the two major players of the talks, but there is no doubt that China's shuttle diplomacy has helped maintain the negotiation process," Jin said.

In September last year, the month when the fourth round of six-party talks failed to begin as it had been planned, Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, visited the DPRK.

Three months later, Chinese vice-foreign minister Dai Bingguo visited the United States as a special envoy of the Chinese government.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was among the issues discussed during those two visits.

China intensified its efforts when the talks were at the brink of collapse early this year.

The new Bush administration early this year called the DPRK an "outpost of tyranny". In return, the DPRK announced on February 10it was suspending its participation in the six-party talks on the nuclear issue for an "indefinite period."

In addition, the DPRK declared that it already had self-defensive nuclear weapons.

At that critical juncture, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing immediately talked over the phone with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ROK Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Japanese Foreign Minister Machimura Nobutaka coordinating stances on peacefully solving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

In a few days after Li's phone-call, Wang Jiarui, head of the International Department of CPC Central Committee, visited the DPRK, conveying Chinese President Hu Jintao's message to the DPRK leaders.

In the months before the resumption of the six-party talks, China continued to try to persuade the DPRK to return to the six-party talks and urged the United States to create favorable conditions for relaunching the talks.

"China's efforts have helped improve six-party negotiators understand other parties' stances and maintain the hard-won dialogue mechanism," said Jin Canrong, a professor with the Renmin(People's) University of China.

The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, which emerged in the early 1990s, is one of the most difficult, sensitive and tricky problems in the world.

Reviewing the negotiation process, Jin Linbo said the new round of six-party talks is a "precious opportunity" for all six nations.

"Compared with the last three rounds of talks, the participants appeared to be more anxious to find a solution and the negotiating format also seemed to be more flexible since no closing date for the talks was specified," he said.

"But we still need to wait and see whether such favorable signs will finally lead to progress in the new round of talks," he said.