The United States said Monday it hoped ties with China would quickly return to normal after a rough patch in which President Barack Obama approved arms sales to Taiwan and met the Dalai Lama.
"We've gone through a bit of a bumpy path here and I think there's an interest, both within the United States and China, to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg was due in China on Tuesday along with Jeffrey Bader, Obama's top Asia adviser on the White House's National Security Council.
"I think this will be an opportunity to refocus on the future and… express our views in a straightforward way to our interlocutors from China," Crowley told reporters.
When taking office in January 2009, Obama pledged to broaden relations between the world's largest developed and developing economies on issues such as reviving the global economy and fighting global change.
After avoiding most divisive issues in his first year, Obama in January approved a 6.4 billion-dollar arms package to Taiwan and last month met with the Dalai Lama, triggering Chinese warnings that he was jeopardizing relations.
Beijing considers Taiwan, where the mainland's defeated nationalists fled in 1949, to be a rebel province awaiting reunification. China vilifies the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader who fled his homeland in 1959.
Relations between the United States and China have also been affected by Internet giant Google's threats to pull out of the emerging Asian market due to cyberattacks it reported on the company and the accounts of rights activists.
Steinberg and Bader will head on Thursday to Japan, whose longstanding alliance with the United States has experienced hiccups since left-leaning Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took office last year.
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