BBC:
China's foreign minister, speaking before leaving for the UN on Thursday, said: "We think it is not necessary to introduce any new resolution".
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Russia has repeatedly said it might use its veto.
But French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on Thursday that the use of the veto "wasn't an issue" because the majority of council members supported France's position.
The BBC's Francis Markus in Shanghai says China's pragmatic instincts make it reluctant to jeopardise an improving relationship with Washington by using its veto against a war it knows might well go ahead anyway.
But the BBC report added that China might decide merely to abstain might leave it looking isolated.
That would be a new dynamic. And China can be decisive as when it captured the US spy plane.
Such a vote would leave an unforgettable polarisation - an open coalition determined to punish the USA for its hegemonic hubris, and waiting for the opportunity.
Tonight the BBC1 commentator talking from the United Nations was unable to relay any optimistic message given to him by UK government representatives.. Straw has the hardest sell of his life. He has come trying to interest people in the an amendement to Britain's own resolution. The Russian ambassador dismissed it curtly as not serious. Instructively one of the "smaller nations" was quoted with an ingenious formula for escaping from all the arm twisting and bribery: they did not see why they should have to resolve the differences between the great powers on the planet.
And although Blair maintained that he still thought there would be a second resolution, he undermined his position on MTV by admitting that he would be prepared to defy more than one veto.
The BBC commentator outside the UN said "It is looking pretty desperate for Tony Blair"
Chris Burford London
