China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist militants in its far western region of Xinjiang, where hundreds have died in violence in recent years.
However, exiles and rights groups say China has never presented convincing evidence of the existence of a cohesive militant group fighting the government, and that much of the unrest can be traced back to frustration at controls over the culture and religion of the Uighur people who live in Xinjiang.
Worries over human rights violations have also meant China has traditionally received little cooperation from Western countries in dealing with the issue.
The ministry said on its website China and the United States had reaffirmed their opposition to any form of militancy and agreed to improve bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
"Both sides will look to broadly increase anti-terrorism cooperation, including how to deal with cross-border foreign terrorists, cracking down on terror financing and increasing intelligence exchanges on terror threats," it said.
It did not elaborate.
The government says Uighurs are also fighting with extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, having fled there via Southeast Asia and Turkey.
China has been worried that instability in Afghanistan, which shares a short border with Xinjiang, could provide succour for Uighur militants and has been deepening its diplomatic engagement there in an effort to bring peace.
The ministry said China and the United States would maintain communication and cooperation in Afghanistan and support efforts
China to launch emissions trading system by 2017
Chinese President Xi Jinping says his country will implement an emissions trading scheme to respond to the threat of climate change.
Standing alongside President Barack Obama at the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping has committed his country to a series of ambitious policies aimed at countering the rise in global temperatures.
Xi said China would introduce a national cap-and-trade system in 2017 that would limit carbon emissions across major industrial sectors, from electricity to iron and steel production. He also pledged to match tougher U.S. fuel standards on heavy trucks planned for 2019, and committed $3.1 billion to help poor countries adapt to climate change.
"President Xi has lifted the final political excuse of inaction in Washington," said Li Shuo, a campaigner for environmental group Greenpeace.
China's aid money matches a similar pledge made last year by Obama, though the money has yet to be delivered to the UN-backed Green Climate Fund because of Republican refusal to appropriate the funds.
Despite the joint announcement by Xi and Obama, some Republicans remained adamantly opposed to a climate deal.
"If the president was serious about achieving a substantive climate agreement, he would spend more time working with Congress instead of developing press releases with the Chinese government," said Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma. "These public pledges sound good but come with serious economic consequences for the United States."
For his part, Trump has not made any public comments about the agreement since it was announced. He did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Friday.
The pledges mean that the world's two biggest carbon emitters have now aligned their climate diplomacy going into negotiations for a global accord in Paris this December. It marks a long evolution from the Kyoto climate talks in the 1990s, when China refused to sign any agreement that would limit carbon emissions. That position undermined support for the Kyoto agreement in the U.S. Congress, which refused to ratify it.
That sentiment remains strong among Republican lawmakers and some Democrats, who oppose U.S. measures to limit carbon emissions because, in part, China has been reluctant to do the same. The result has been a standoff between Obama and Congress that hit a nadir in 2010 when the Senate balked at passing the administration's attempt to enact a national carbon market.
Now Xi says China will move ahead with just such a market.
"The irony is rich: emissions trading is an American idea; now it's become an American export," said David Sandalow, a fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy and former under secretary of energy for policy and international affairs.
Other parts of the Chinese package reveal a similar change - in tone, at least.
China's financial pledge is a "watershed moment" for climate diplomacy, environmental groups say, because it shows a willingness to share the billions of dollars believed required to help poor countries shift to low-carbon economies and deal with the effects of a hotter planet. China has long seen itself as a developing nation that is expected to be on the receiving end of any international largesse.
Jake Schmidt, international policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said this change in attitude removes a common complaint about China from Congressional opponents.
"China is not going to be the recipient of U.S. climate financing, which is how some of our friends on the Hill are painting it," said Schmidt. "This is a better narrative."
In fact, Obama is the more likely leader who will be forced to show up in Paris without money. The first $500 million of the president's $3 billion pledge is held up in thorny budget negotiations on Capitol Hill, where some Republican lawmakers have vowed to block any international climate funding.
