Washington’s outgoing ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley says China did not want a breakout of a war on the Korean Peninsula when North Korea was accelerating the development of its nuclear arsenals last year. 

In an interview with U.S. media outlet, The Atlantic, she says she learned China didn’t want military action and didn’t want North Korean refugees to come across the border.

She says she talked Beijing into cooperating on pressing the North over its nuclear program, including on an oil embargo. 

The U.S. ambassador said she also managed to persuade Russia on pressing the North by warning that Moscow would become the only one standing with the North against the rest of the world. 

She credits U.S. President Donald Trump's tough rhetoric against the North Korean regime, saying Trump's statements made it difficult to predict what he would do.

She says that was “very, very, helpful” in drafting additional U.N. sanctions that she says brought the North to the table.