Agence France-Presse,
US and Chinese diplomats launched a broad dialogue Wednesday expected to touch on a range of issues from Beijing's military build-up to its human rights record and help in ending the Darfur conflict.
US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte and China's executive vice foreign minister Dai Bingguo led their teams to the two-day closed-door US-China “senior dialogue” at the State Department.
In brief remarks before the meeting, Negroponte said, “We look very much forward to our discussions.”
“I hope we achieve a satisfactory result,” Dai said.
The discussions “can cover anything from (military) to (military) relations to human rights issues to working together on critical problems facing us, like Darfur,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “It is a whole range of issues.”
The meeting is being held amid US concerns over China's military buildup in a “non-transparent” fashion, human rights abuses, keeping its yuan currency undervalued as well as energy dealings with Iran.
A Pentagon report on Chinese military power last month detailed Beijing's drive to acquire modern warships, aircraft and missiles in what appeared to be part of a longer-term strategy to deny US forces access to the Asian region.
Though Taiwan is the immediate focus of China's overhaul of its military, Beijing appears to be amassing military capabilities to project power well beyond the nationalist-rule island, driven in part by a desire to protect energy supply lines.
Last week, the United States announced plans to tighten export controls, targeting high-tech civilian goods that could benefit China’s military.
On the human rights front, US President George W. Bush at a recent conference in Prague attacked China for rights abuses and said Beijing's political reforms were lagging behind its economic progress.
The United States also has been looking forward to China's support on international issues, especially to solve the devastating crisis in Beijing's ally Sudan's western region of Darfur.
China said this week that it had used “very direct language” to persuade the Sudanese government to accept a beefed-up peacekeeping force to Darfur.
As the United States steps up international efforts to isolate Iran over its defiant nuclear program, it is quiety concerned over China's potential oil and gas investments in the Islamic republic, experts say.
Beijing has signed a 100-billion-dollar agreement to import 10 million tonnes of Iranian natural gas over the coming decades. In return, Chinese companies will become key stakeholders in Iran's oil fields.
But McCormack said the Chinese had not invested money into the projects, which would be the “trigger” for application of US laws on investments in Iran.
“There's a big difference between talking to the Iranian Government and even negotiating with the Iranian Government about potential investments and actually investing money,” he said.
He described the US-China meeting this week as a “companion piece” to the US-China “strategic economic dialogue” last month led by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi and US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
At the economic talks, Washington had prodded Beijing to allow greater flexibility of its yuan amid concerns that it was artificially keeping the currency low against the US dollar to make its exports more competitive.
Growing sentiment in the US Congress to penalize China for its currency policies is fueling worry among economists over trade frictions that might lead to serious consequences for both countries.
Both the dialogues were launched by Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao as part of efforts to improve ties between the world's most developed nation, and the most rapidly-growing and most populous economy.
