China and the United States have made progress on "structural issues" such as forced technology transfers and intellectual property rights in talks this week and more consultations are being arranged, China's commerce ministry says.
The three-day talks in Beijing that wrapped up on Wednesday were the first face-to-face negotiations since US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, met in Buenos Aires in December and agreed on a 90-day truce in a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of goods.
The negotiations were initially scheduled to last two days but went on for three because both sides were "serious" and "honest", Gao Feng, spokesman at the Chinese commerce ministry, told a news conference on Thursday.
Asked about China's stance on issues such as forced technology transfers, intellectual property rights, tariff barriers and cyber attacks, and whether China was confident it could reach agreement with the United States, Gao said those issues "were an important part of this trade talk".
"There has been progress in these areas," he said. He did not elaborate.
The United States has presented China with a long list of demands that would rewrite the terms of trade between the world's two largest economies.
They include changes to China's policies on intellectual property protection, technology transfers, industrial subsidies and other non-tariff barriers to trade.
China has repeatedly played down complaints about intellectual property abuses, and has rejected accusations that foreign companies face forced technology transfer.
On Wednesday, the US Trade Representative's office (USTR) said officials from the two sides discussed "ways to achieve fairness, reciprocity and balance in trade relations", and focused on China's pledge to buy a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured, and other products and services from the United States".
At stake are scheduled US tariff increase on $US200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
Trump has said he would increase those duties to 25 per cent from 10 per cent if no deal is reached by March 2, and has threatened to tax all imports from China if it fails to cede to US demands.
US officials have long complained that China has failed to live up to trade promises, often citing pledges to resume imports of American beef that took more than a decade to implement.
Both sides agreed to maintain close contact, the Chinese commerce ministry said.
Since the Trump-Xi meeting in Argentina, China resumed purchases of US soybeans.
China has also cut tariffs on US cars, dialled back on an industrial development plan known as "Made in China 2025", and told its state refiners to buy more US oil.
One of the biggest challenges to any deal would be to ensure that China enforces whatever is agreed to stop technology transfers, intellectual property theft and hacking of US computer networks.
The US Trade Representative's office said officials broached those topics and discussed the need for any agreement to include "complete implementation subject to ongoing verification and effective enforcement".
