After suspending exchanges last year in anger over a planned 6.5-billion-dollar US arms sale to Taiwan, China invited the United States for the talks in what some saw as an olive branch to new US President Barack Obama.

"The timing (for the talks) is that there is a new US administration," said Ralph Cossa, the Honolulu-based head of the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The Chinese made the decision that they were going to punish us for the arms sales to Taiwan until George W. Bush left office."

Taiwan, an independently governed island that communist China considers part of its territory, is a perennial sore point between Beijing and Washington, partly because of US arms sales to the small democracy.

The arms package that derailed the talks four months ago could still go ahead, and if it is carried out, Taiwan will receive advanced weaponry including 30 Apache attack helicopters and 330 Patriot missiles.

Even so, Taiwan is becoming less of an obstacle to Sino-US military exchanges, with the island now ruled by a relatively China-friendly president who is far less likely than his predecessor to push for independence.

"It removes a source of tension, so that we can fill that square and move on much more quickly," said Cossa.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney will head the US delegation for the two-day Defence Policy Coordination Talks with the People's Liberation Army in Beijing. The annual talks were first held in 1997.

The United States has flagged its interest in using the latest round to work more closely with China on regional and global security issues such as piracy, as well as simply a chance to better understand the Chinese military.

"These talks will be the first policy dialogue with the PLA under the new administration and represent an opportunity to further the dialogue with (China)," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

The talks also come amid a tentative atmosphere of optimism that China and the United States are willing to work more closely on issues of global concern, such as the economic crisis and climate change.

This was the main theme of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing last weekend, which both sides hailed as a success and a foundation for future co-operation.

However, deep tensions and mistrust on military issues undoubtedly remain.

The talks will take place just days before China unveils its military budget for 2009, likely announcing yet another large increase in defence spending and underlining its ambition of becoming a more respected global power.

In previous years, China's announcement of its defence budget has triggered criticism from the United States and its allies about a Chinese military build-up and a lack of transparency in this area.

The US commander in the Pacific, Admiral Timothy Keating, this month indicated those concerns remained.

"Transparency involves insight -- we want not just to see, but to understand, the weapons they are developing," Keating said while in Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post.

Nevertheless, he also pointed to increased co-operation, saying there were "nascent initiatives" under way for an accord designed to avoid an accidental confrontation at sea.

Xiong Zhiyong, an expert on US-China relations at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, indicated differences over a perceived lack of transparency would likely remain.

"Each side has different understandings about transparency," he said.

"So I think it's a bit unfair for the United States to accuse China of lacking transparency based on its own standard."

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