President Bush pressed China on Thursday not to spread weapons technology and to let its people choose how they live and worship on the first day of a visit designed to build on a new spirit of Sino-US cooperation. But despite smiles and warm handshakes all round, Bush, who arrived in the capital Beijing exactly 30 years after a bridge-building visit by former President Richard Nixon, failed to secure a hoped-for early deal on arms proliferation. Chinese President Jiang Zemin, for his part, said the two countries would step up consultations on counter terrorism but he urged patience in the war on terrorism, which Bush launched after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Bush, visiting China for the second time in four months, was on the final leg of a three-nation Asian tour that has taken him to Japan and South Korea.
"My government hopes that China will strongly oppose the proliferation of missiles and other deadly technologies," he told a joint news conference after talks with Jiang marked by a series of frank but friendly exchanges.
The United States has accused China of transferring weapons technology to North Korea and Iran, nations Bush has branded with Iraq as an "axis of evil" seeking to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice, said she did not expect an arms proliferation deal to be reached during Bush's current visit to China, which denies the U.S. charges.
"The talks are getting a little bit better but it's going to take a while," Rice told reporters.
Bush invited Jiang and his heir apparent and vice president, Hu Jintao, to visit the United States -- invitations that both accepted.
Bush said there had been no change in Washington's policy toward Taiwan, which China claims as a renegade province, and he said the people of China should be free to choose how they live and worship.
"China's future is for the Chinese people to decide, yet no nation is exempt from the demands of human dignity," he said.

"All the world's people, including the people of China, should be free to choose how they live, how they worship, and how they work." Bureau Report