The United States has urged China to spend more at home and export less to help restore a sustainable pace of global growth, saying the two countries shared common ambitions despite their divisions.
Opening two days of bilateral talks, US President Barack Obama said his country and China needed to overcome mutual wariness and deepen co-operation on everything from the global economic crisis to climate change and North Korea.
At the start of the talks both Mr Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged Beijing to encourage more domestic consumption but did not repeat previous appeals to revalue its currency, the yuan.
"As Americans save more and Chinese are able to spend more, we can put growth on a more sustainable foundation, because just as China has benefited from substantial investment and profitable exports, China can also be an enormous market for American goods," Mr Obama said.
Mr Geithner repeated a pledge to get US deficits under control, a message intended to make Beijing feel confident its US investments will not lose value.
The top Chinese official at the talks, Wang Qishan, said China's efforts to stimulate its economy were working and this would help the US and other major economies.
But US manufacturing groups complain that China heavily subsidises its exports, including by keeping the value of its currency artificially low against the dollar.
Call to respect minorities
The Obama administration has sought to tread gently on sensitive issues that have separated the two countries in the past, although the president risked Beijing's displeasure by urging it to respect its ethnic and religious minorities.
"Just as we respect China's ancient culture and remarkable achievements, we also strongly believe that the religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds," he said.
"That includes ethnic and religious minorities in China, as surely as it includes minorities within the United States."
The comments will be seen as a reference to unrest among ethnic Uighurs and Tibetans in western China and subsequent crackdowns from Beijing in 2008 and this year.
