SEOUL — China seeks peace and opening in North Korea for its own sustained economic development while the U.S. would rather have "controllable, moderate tension" on the Korean Peninsula, a scholar said Tuesday.

"There are a lot of people who say that China does not want Korean unification and would seek to maximize its interests by playing in between the two Koreas but what would China gain actually from this standoff, other than a greater say in the UN?" Jin Qiangyi, professor of Yanbian University said.