State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that China has proposed to the United States a date for the next round of "Strategic and Economic Dialogue," which last year involved Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Yes," Crowley told reporters when asked if the dialogue was likely to occur in the next few months. "Sooner rather than later."

In July Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner led the US side in the inaugural version of the talks, which aim to tackle a broad range of issues between the world's largest developed and developing countries.

The two countries decided at the time that the next round of talks would take place in Beijing in 2010 between "special representatives" of President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao.

Relations between the United States and China have been shaken in recent weeks by a series of disputes including over Tibet, Taiwan and Internet censorship.

But Clinton's deputy, James Steinberg, and Jeffrey Bader, Obama's top aide on Asia, are in Beijing this week for talks, which have raised hopes in Washington that relations with China will persevere through a rough patch.

"If this suggests that we are refocusing on the future and the important issues that we can work on together, I think we are encouraged by this," Crowley said.

"This is expressly why we sought this meeting -- to be able to refocus on very specific issues, not the least of which is obviously our joint concerns about Iran," Crowley said.

China, which holds veto power on the UN Security Council, has hesitated at supporting tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Western nations suspect is an effort to build atomic weapons.

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