The United States and China agreed Wednesday on the need to reduce tensions and avoid a repeat of a confrontation between American and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said.

While neither side yielded in their conflicting version of events, Clinton said she and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi assented that similar episodes should be avoided in the future.

"We both agreed that we should work to ensure that such incidents do not happen again," Clinton told reporters after meeting Yang at the State Department, signaling that the two countries were still at odds over the exact circumstances of what happened.

"We have each stated our positions, but the important point of agreement coming out of my discussions with Minister Yang is that we must work hard in the future to avoid such incidents and to avoid this particular incident having consequences that are unforeseen," she said.

Clinton told reporters that Yang's visit was a "very positive" development, and she looked forward to continuing discussions that she started with him during a trip to Beijing last month to build a "positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship."

Before their private meeting, neither Clinton nor Yang mentioned the dispute, even as China's Foreign Ministry in Beijing fired back for a second consecutive day at U.S. complaints that Chinese vessels harassed a U.S. Navy mapping ship in international waters on Sunday.

Yang will meet Thursday with President Barack Obama and his national security adviser James Jones and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he expected the dispute would be discussed then but not dominate the conversation.

"The incident involving the boats of the two countries will be on the agenda but I don't think that will overshadow" discussions on larger issues, Gibbs said.

At the Pentagon, Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said the U.S. hopes that "face-to-face dialogue in Beijing and in Washington will go a long way to clearing up any misunderstanding about this incident."

Even if diplomatic efforts by Clinton and Yang are successful in toning down the dispute, however, it may be only a temporary lull in a larger military disagreement.

Beijing has long complained about U.S. surveillance operations around China's borders. Without better communications between the two militaries as they operate in the South China Sea, the possibility for future conflict will remain.

On Wednesday, China's Foreign Ministry in Beijing reiterated that the U.S. claims are "gravely in contravention of the facts and unacceptable to China." Beijing says the U.S. ship was operating illegally in China's exclusive economic zone.

U.S. defense officials say the unarmed Navy ship was in international waters and violating no laws. Officials said the USS Impeccable was looking for threats such as submarines, presumably Chinese. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the ship's exact capabilities are sensitive information.

Other U.S. officials have said publicly that the United States will continue to patrol in the South China Sea despite Chinese objections. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told lawmakers Tuesday that the incident was the most serious episode between the two nations since 2001, when China forced the landing of a U.S. spy plane and seized the crew.

The tension arose as the Obama administration tries to get Chinese help on a host of foreign policy matters, including efforts to confront Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan and help staunch the worldwide economic meltdown.

Yang did not speak to reporters after his meeting with Clinton but said earlier that the primary point of his visit was to prepare for a meeting between Obama and Chinese President Hu Jinatao that will take place in early April in London on the sidelines of a summit on the global financial crisis.

Clinton said the United States and China share a joint responsibility to make that summit a success and help the world's ailing economies recover. She praised as "a very positive step" the Chinese government's own economic stimulus package, which is aimed at promoting domestic consumption.

"There is a great commitment and willingness on the part of both our government and the Chinese government to play productive and constructive roles in helping to move the world toward this recovery," she said, noting that Yang would also meet Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

In her comments, Clinton rejected criticism from some lawmakers and human rights groups that the administration has downgraded the promotion of human rights in its foreign policy. She noted she had raised such matters, including the situation in Tibet, with Yang.

"Human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue" with China, she said. "It doesn't take a front seat, a back seat or a middle seat. It is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing."

At about the time she spoke, members of the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution sponsored by Democratic Rep. Rush Holt, with 12 co-sponsors, both Democrats and Republicans, that decried China's suppression of unrest in Tibet.

The House speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, said, "If freedom-loving people do not speak out for human rights in China and Tibet, then we lose the moral authority to talk about it in any other place in the world."

The Associated Press, March 11, 2009