China-US relations are developing rather smoothly ahead of President George W. Bush's visit to Beijing this month, despite a year of turbulence since he took office, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on February 5.

"The relationship is back on an improving track," Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, attributing progress to a desire by both sides to heal the scars left by a crisis over a US EP-3 spyplane bumping into a Chinese jet over South China Sea.

Powell stressed that despite their ideological differences, the United States and China should cooperate in areas where they had common interests, including Beijing's entry into the World Trade Organisation, peace efforts on the Korean peninsula and battling HIV/AIDS.

"On such issues we can talk, and produce constructive outcomes," Powell said, laying out the case for engagement with China, a school of diplomacy favored by one of several competing camps in the Bush administration.

Powell also acknowledged there were areas in which the US and China "decidedly did not see eye to eye".

"On such issues we can have a dialogue and try to make progress. But we do not want the issues where we differ to restrain us from pursuing those where we share common goals," Powell said.

"That is the basis on which our relations are going rather smoothly at present."

Since terror attacks on September 11 fundamentally altered much of its foreign policy, the United States has praised China for its intelligence assistance during its campaign against terrorism.

Powell also praised that day that Beijing had played a constructive role in his initiative to downplay tensions between India and Pakistan.

"Beijing was not trying to be a spoiler but instead was trying to help us alleviate tensions and convince the two parties to scale down their dangerous confrontation -- which now it appears they are beginning to do."

"All of this cooperation came as a result of our careful efforts to build the relationship over the months since the EP-3 incident."

Bush will visit Beijing for a day-and-a-half arriving on February 21, 30 years to the day since then president Richard Nixon and Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong held epochal talks which led to China's emergence on the world stage.

He is due to meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, on a tour of Asia which also includes stops in Seoul and Tokyo.

(China Daily)