BEIJING — Chinese officials are urging the government of Afghanistan to restart peace talks with the Taliban after the last round of discussions collapsed, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.

The statement by China late Tuesday was a sign that its leaders were asserting their commitment to the nascent peace process despite problems after the major countries involved learned last year that a Taliban founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, had been dead for two years. That caused a split in the Taliban ranks and raised questions among the participants in the talks.

China is a member of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group, which is promoting the peace process. That process is at such an early stage that the nations are still talking about mechanisms for holding more formal discussions that would, in theory, involve representatives of the Taliban. The group, which also includes Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan, is expected to meet in February in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The Afghan and United States governments are hoping that China will exert greater influence in the talks on Pakistan, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s and is a Chinese ally.