The United States has hailed Japan and Australia's imposition of sanctions on North Korea.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that the new sanctions would help "protect the Japanese and Australian financial systems from exploitation by proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their facilitators."

He urged other countries to undertake similar actions as a way to implement the U.N. resolution adopted on the North’s missile tests in July.

However, the U.S.'s strategy of applying pressure on Pyongyang witnessed a blow from China, which reiterated its opposition to sanctions on Pyongyang. Beijing also said it will not attend the ten-nation talks on the North's nuclear program this week in New York.

Meanwhile, in Seoul, the government refrained from commenting on the new sanctions, saying that South Korea understands that Japan and Australia sought the sanctions after reviewing domestic and international laws in line with the U.N. resolution.