The United States and Japan vowed Saturday to punish North Korea for its missile tests, refusing to budge for China and Russia which are fighting at the United Nations to impose new sanctions. The United States, however, also reached out to North Korea, saying it was ready to sit down one-on-one if the communist state returned to multinational talks on its nuclear and missile programmes.US envoy Christopher Hill, on a whirlwind tour after the missile launches, called for China to close ranks with Washington after receiving a lukewarm response in Beijing Friday. "We had very good discussions with the Chinese and made very clear our very deep concerns about what is going on in the DPRK, and I called upon the Chinese to understand that we will be much more effective if we speak with one voice," Hill told reporters during talks in Seoul, his second stop. "To be very frank, I think this is not a time for so-called gestures of that kind," Hill said.