US Secretary of State Colin Powell Saturday raised the issue of human rights in talks with China's top leaders and was told that Beijing was prepared to open a dialogue on the subject.
"I'm pleased that our two countries will be resuming our dialogue on human rights in the coming months," Powell told journalists.
Powell said discussions would begin "right away", leading up to more "formal discussions" later this year.
Following the resolution of the row caused by a mid-air collision between a US spy plane and Chinese fighter jet in April, China agreed to resume a human rights dialogue with Washington at lower levels although no talks were formally announced.
Powell met Saturday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji, Vice Premier Qian Qichen and Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.
He said he did not raise individual cases of rights violations in his talks, following Beijing's release earlier this week of three US-based scholars who were convicted by Chinese courts of spying for Taiwan.
"I did not raise specific cases because I think it's more important not to focus all the time on individual cases," Powell said.
"We have seen some progress, I might say success, in the three cases within the past three days."
He was referring to the deportation of US citizen Li Shaomin and the release on medical parole of US permanent residents Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang.
"We had a candid exchange of views but we have two different perspectives to this ... I made the case and a strong point that there is nevertheless universality with respect to human rights that all nations should aspire to," he added.
China and the United States first agreed to hold a bilateral human rights dialogue during a summit between Jiang and former president Bill Clinton in 1998, but the talks never took off due to US-sponsored United Nations resolutions condemning China's record.
The 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia also helped to scupper hopes of an extended dialogue.
On Friday, 35 Chinese political dissidents sent an open letter to Powell calling on him raise human rights issues with the Chinese leadership and seek the release of Xu Wenli, the jailed founder of the outlawed China Democracy Party.
Xu, 59, has spent 15 of the last 20 years in prison and is currently in the third year of a 13-year jail term for subversion -- BEIJING (AFP)
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