VIENNA (BLOOMBERG) - The US and North Korea need to formally declare an end to 76 years of hostility if the international community wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to stop developing nuclear weapons, a top Chinese foreign policy official said.

"North Korea and the US still have not made peace, they've been in an extended cease-fire," said Fu Ying, who chairs the foreign affairs committee of China's National People's Congress.

"You need to think how to bring an end to the war and enter a more normal relationship."

The US and North Korea agreed to a United Nations-backed armistice in 1953 which ended three years of fighting in the Korean War. The military stalemate split the peninsula along the 38th parallel after the conflict left more than half a million troops from China, the US, North and South Korea dead.

Speaking on Saturday (Feb 13) at the Munich Security Conference, Fu said that while her country is displeased with the recent nuclear test by North Korea - formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - citizens are even more concerned by the US response.

"The Chinese public is also angry about the DPRK nuclear issue, but they're even more angry about THAAD," Fu said, referring to the Thermal High Altitude Area Defence anti-ballistic missile system the US says it deployed to protect against North Korea.

"It covers more territory in China than in North and South Korea together."