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SEOUL, July 6 — North Korea responded to international anger over its missile tests by threatening today to launch still more missiles, and warned of “stronger physical actions” if other nations impose sanctions on it.

The United Nations Security Council prepared to meet for a second day today to discuss the missile issue, with China and Russia opposing a resolution drafted by Japan and backed by the United States that called for sanctions against North Korea, which fired seven missiles into waters off northern Japan on Wednesday.

President Bush spoke by telephone to the leaders of Japan and South Korea early today, and R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, repeated the administration’s hope that the missile tests would elicit strong action from China.

Mr. Burns, in an interview with CNN, also suggested that it might be possible to apply sanctions without a Security Council vote. Any of the five permanent members of the council can block it from acting, and two of them, China and Russia, have shown reluctance to consider punitive measures.

“Countries have to take individual action as well as collective action,” Mr. Burns said.

The Chinese government again dismissed the idea of sanctions this morning, saying that China and North Korea remained “friendly neighbors” and calling for diplomacy as the best way to alleviate the tensions.

The comments by a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, during a media briefing was seen as Beijing’s message to Washington that China would not go along with the American desire for stepped-up economic pressure on the North, a tactic that Chinese leaders fear could create instability and problems along its border with North Korea.

China also announced today that it would send its chief negotiator with North Korea, Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, to Pyongyang for talks July 10-15. Mr. Wu is scheduled to meet on Friday in Beijing with an American assistant secretary of state, Christopher Hill, who represented the United States at the stalled six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs.

“Practice tells us dialogue and consultation are effective ways to solve problems,” Ms. Yu said, reconfirming China’s long-standing policy.

China, while unhappy with the North’s nuclear and missile programs, also wants to use the standoff between Washington and Pyongyang, its traditional ideological and economic protégé, to increase its diplomatic leverage, analysts said.

Mr. Jiang voiced “serious concerns” about the North Korean missile tests. But when asked if China would cut back on aid to its neighbor because of the tests, Mr. Jiang said, “At present we are not taking this aspect into consideration.”

After President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea spoke with Mr. Bush, his office said they agreed on diplomatic efforts to defuse the tensions.

Officials in Tokyo said that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Mr. Bush agreed to work together for a U.N. resolution demanding that nations prevent the transfer of funds and technology that could be used for North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, today downplayed the idea that there was a rift between the United States and China over how to respond to the missile launchings.

“What’s meaningful here is what governments tell him privately, as well as in public,” Mr. Burns said. “The Chinese have given us every indication that they will stand with us.”

North Korea issued a statement today saying that Washington’s rejection of direct talks and financial pressure made it more determined to increase its missile capabilities, and insisting that it had a legal right to test missiles. The statement also responded to American claims that the test of the largest missile, the Taepodong 2, was a failure because the flight lasted only 42 second.

“Our successful missile tests were part of a regular military exercise conducted by our military to boost our self-defense,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told the North’s official news agency, KCNA.

“Our military will continue with missile launch drills in the future as part of efforts to strengthen self-defense deterrent,” the spokesman said. “If anyone intends to dispute or add pressure about this, we will have to take stronger physical actions in other forms.”

He did not elaborate. But Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York, also told the Japanese broadcaster TBS that the North would take “all-out countermeasures if sanctions are exercised.”

The Communist regime is given to making dramatic statements to increase its leverage in negotiations. But it also has a history of provocative actions, such as the missile tests Wednesday.

Analysts said North Korea may try to launch another Taepodong 2 intercontinental missile, which is theoretically capable of hitting Alaska. “There is a possibility that North Korea will fire additional missiles, based on our intelligence and assessments of the traffic of equipment and personnel in and out of launch sites,” Defense Minister Yoon Kwang Ung of South Korea told a parliamentary hearing.

Experts say it takes days, if not weeks, to transport, mount and fuel a Taepodong 2 for a test launching. Officials both in Seoul and in Tokyo reported no immediate signs of another Taepodong test. But they said North Korea may fire more short- and medium-range missiles.

Major South Korean newspapers reported today that North Korea has three or four more intermediate-range missiles on launch pads. The mass-circulation daily Chosun Ilbo said the North had barred fishermen from sailing into some areas off the coast until July 11, a possible sign that it may fire more missiles.

Even if the Taepodong 2 launch was a failure, the successful tests of othermodels will strengthen the market value of North Korean missiles among its clients in the Middle East, experts and officials have said.

Both Japan and South Korea fall well within range of North Korean missiles. But their reactions varied widely.

Tokyo responded swiftly by barring North Korean officials from entering Japan, and banned one of its trading vessels from Japanese ports for six months.

South Korea only indicated that it would take some sanctions, such as a reduction in food aid. But like China, it stressed that diplomacy, not pressure, was the best way to solve the crisis.

The South Korean unification minister, Lee Jong Seok, told the National Assembly today that cabinet-level meetings between the two Koreas, scheduled for next week, should go ahead, and that Seoul would press ahead with inter-Korean economic joint ventures.

John O’Neil contributed reporting from New York.