The United States and China this week held their first in-depth policy dialogue under President Barack Obama, who declared that the relationship between the biggest developed and developing nations would shape the century.

While the talks were general in scope, US officials and the 150-strong Chinese delegation managed to avoid any public spats even on longstanding sore points such as human rights.

Representative Rick Larsen, co-chair of a bipartisan group in Congress involved with China ties, said Chinese officials he met invoked the word cooperation "innumerable" times.

"Their words and actions indicate a ready willingness to work together with the United States on any number of issues," Larsen told AFP.

"That is something new for this relationship," he said. "I think it is going to pay dividends for the two countries, but also importantly I think it will end up paying dividends for the rest of the world."

China and the United States pledged to work together to revive the wobbly global economy but also called for cooperation in less obvious areas, including on policy toward the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Larsen, a member of Obama's Democratic Party from Washington state, said the true test would be whether the new mood would withstand a possible future crisis.

He said the greatest potential for a flare-up was in the South China Sea, where US and Chinese warships have repeatedly confronted one another.

The Dalai Lama is also expected later this year in Washington. China has been stepping up pressure on other nations not to allow visits by the Tibetan spiritual leader, who is widely admired in the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States raised human rights with the Chinese delegation and that she voiced concern over recent ethnic violence in Muslim-majority Xinjiang province.

But while China often bristles at foreign criticism, a senior official instead praised the United States for taking a "moderate" line on Xinjiang.

China and the United States also signed an agreement stating that climate change would be a top priority as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen aimed at sealing a new global treaty.

But even Senator John Kerry, a close Obama ally, acknowledged that specific steps on how the world's two biggest carbon emitters would work together on climate change "did not materialize."

Kerry, the Democrats' failed 2004 presidential candidate, said it would be politically impossible for the United States to take action on global warming unless China and India do so.

"If China doesn't act, it will be very hard to translate whatever happens in Copenhagen, if it even happens, into law here," Kerry told a luncheon.

Obama has sharply shifted gears from predecessor George W. Bush, under whom the United States was the sole rich nation to reject mandatory cuts on emissions.

Developing nations have resisted binding cuts in emissions, saying that rich countries bear historic responsibility for global warming.

In a bid to bridge the gap, prominent Chinese-Americans including corporate leaders and academics are charting ways for the two countries to cooperate on climate change.

Members of the group, known as the US-China Green Energy Council, are meeting this week with members of the US Congress.

Representative Mike Honda, the group's honorary chairman and head of the Asian-American caucus in the US Congress, said the United States and China were now at least working together in good faith on climate change.

"I think finally we are on our way," Honda told AFP. "Our biggest enemy is time."

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