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by Stephen Collinson WASHINGTON (AFP) Bruising diplomatic clashes in the United Nations Security Council over Iraq have put a new spirit of cooperation between the United States and China to its first significant test.

President George W. Bush's administration and Beijing have both made strenuous efforts over the last 18 months to stress the positive, in what debuted two years ago as a highly strained relationship.

Both sides have seen potential in the re-ordered geopolitics since the September 11, attacks, highlighting areas like anti-terror cooperation where their interests coincide, rather than issues of intense disagreement, like Taiwan and human rights.

China wants the United States to ensure a decision to wage war on Iraq is ratified by a deeply divided Security Council and President Jiang Zemin has made no secret of the fact that Beijing opposes war to disarm Iraq.

But significantly, unlike Russia and France, it has not yet threatened to use its veto as one of the council's permanent five members when a resolution that could lead to war comes to a vote in the council, probably this week.

"It's clear that China doesn't have a dog in this fight, and I think President Jiang has told President Bush directly that the Chinese are going to abstain," said John Tkacik, of the conservative Heritage Foundation. Abstention may permit Beijing to reconcile its desire not to shake up relations with the United States, with its interests elsewhere, said Richard Bush, a Brookings Institution scholar and former head of the US-Taiwan Institute in Taipei.

"They are positioning themselves to abstain and hope that they don't offend anybody very much."

"It doesn't help (US-China relations) but it doesn't block the United States from doing what it wants to do."

China believes that its number one objective is to develop its economy and would be lothe to put its continued access to US markets in doubt, analysts here said. On the US side, the administration does not need Beijing's support in an Iraq campaign, but is keen that Beijing does not block its chosen path, said John Gershman, of the Foreign Policy in Focus think-tank.

"I don't think they are expecting China to come out for it, they are expecting them to abstain and they would be quite frankly happy with it, I think," he said.

"They are perfectly happy to let France and Russia carry the water on this," said Gershman.

Analysts also note the Iraq issue is coming to a head just as China's political elite meet in the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing to rubber-stamp a sweeping generational change in China's political leadership.

It is thought unlikely here that the new cadre of leaders under Hu Jintao, who seem every bit as obsessed with stability as their predecessors, will want their first shot in anger to be a veto of a resolution so central to US foreign policy. China may also be hoping that its non-obstruction on the Iraq issue, may prompt the United States to temper its fierce pressure on Beijing on the North Korea nuclear crisis.

Washington wants Beijing to convince its top aid recipient and significant trade partners in Pyongyang to renounce nuclear development.

China meanwhile wants the United States to talk one-on-one with the Stalinist state to resolve the crisis - a step that President George W. Bush has refused to take.

Relations between the novice President Bush and China were thrown into turmoil months after he took office, when in April 2000 the downing of a US surveillance plane on Hainan island triggered a serious diplomatic crisis.

That issue appeared to convince both sides to step back from the brink, a trend that was confirmed after the September 11 attacks.

China surprised US officials by not voicing overt opposition to a US military buildup in central Asia, which some analysts expected would feed traditional Chinese fears of encirclement by a foreign power.

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