The United States and China glossed over differences on human rights as they pledged yesterday to work more closely in tackling the global economic crisis and climate change.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi set the stage for future joint action on the two crises, as Chinese activists said police had sought to muzzle them during Clinton's high-profile visit.
Giving hope for a new era of co-operation between the world powers, the pair told a press conference they had already begun planning for the Group of 20 summit in London on April 2.
The pair were to meet again next month in the United States to co-ordinate positions for the summit where Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao were to hold their first meeting since Obama took office in January.
Clinton told Hu that she and Yang had "agreed in principle to a strategic and economic dialogue that we will work on with the hope of having you and president Obama personally announce it."
She also met Premier Wen Jiabao, who praised Clinton's call for international cooperation on combating the economic crisis.
Reforming global financial regulations and international economic institutions will be among the top agenda items at the G20 summit.
One of export-driven China's chief concerns is that the US, the world's biggest economy, will put up trade barriers, as evidenced by a 'Buy American' clause in the huge US stimulus package approved recently.
But Yang said after his meeting with Clinton that they had agreed to "reject trade and investment protectionism".
For the US side, Clinton indicated Yang had given her an assurance that China would continue to buy US Treasury bonds, which is seen as vital for the US to help pay for its $787 billion stimulus package.
"I greatly appreciate China's continued confidence in US Treasuries," Clinton told a joint press conference with Yang.
Yang was more circumspect, but signalled China would not deviate drastically from its US Treasury policies.
"We will make further determinations about the ways and the means we will use our foreign exchange reserves," he said.
"(But) I want to emphasise here that facts speak louder than words."
Clinton said the two countries - the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters - agreed they had a "shared interest" in producing a successful deal at the Copenhagen summit in December aimed at combating climate change.
"The United States and China will build an important partnership to develop and deploy clean energy technologies designed to speed our transformation to low-carbon economies," Clinton said.
Accompanied by her climate change envoy Todd Stern, she visited a General Electric power plant in Beijing that runs on natural gas, to highlight potential cooperation on clean energy.