The United States has opted not to back a resolution condemning China at the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission, despite having blasted Beijing's "poor" record of abuse of basic freedoms less than two weeks ago, State Department officials said.
The United States, which traditionally seeks to censure Beijing at the Geneva-based commission, remained concerned about China's performance but wanted to see how its new generation of leaders would act, they said.
Rights groups immediately lambasted the move as a huge undeserved diplomatic victory for Beijing and questioned whether the failure to lodge the resolution was a payoff for Chinese support in the US anti-terror war and other diplomatic crises.
"We did not submit a resolution," one senior official told AFP on condition of anonymity, less than 24 hours after the deadline for proposing motions at the commission passed late Thursday.
Washington had noted "some progress" on human rights in China, notably the resumption last year of a stalled human rights dialogue with Washington, the official said.
"We do believe that we are getting some progress from the Chinese government on their practices and will press for that to continue despite their long-term poor record and some setbacks," the official said.
With China's new leadership still finding its feet, US officials appeared keen to permit President Hu Jintao and other Communist Party chiefs to prove their conduct in human rights.
"The key thing here is that there is a new leadership in China, it's a new era, and our view is that it is worth waiting to see what this new government will bring," a second official told AFP.
A third official said that internal debate had raged within the administration for weeks on what to do about a resolution.
The decision emerged from the White House, and not the State Department, just before Thursday's deadline, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Human rights lobbyists said the move highlighted a debate on who was in charge of US foreign policy.
"For the United States, it raises serious questions about US policy, when the State Department just issued a damning report on China's human rights record but now totally lets China off the hook," said Mike Jendrzejczyk of Human Rights Watch.
"This is a huge disappointment," he said.
Amnesty International said the US move aided "China's evasion of scrutiny of its human rights record."
"China's dismal -- and deteriorating -- human rights record cannot be covered up," said William F. Schulz, the director of Amnesty International USA.
The State Department's annual review of global human rights published on March 31 said China had a "poor" record, and listed transgressions in basic human freedoms and religious persecution among a catalogue of alleged abuses.
The US decision marks the second consecutive year that China, which mounts a huge preventive lobbying effort, has escaped condemnation at the UN commission.
Last year, the United States lost its seat on the commission and other states declined to sponsor a critical resolution.
Washington has either sponsored or backed an anti-China resolution in the commission nearly every year since the 1989 crackdown on dissidents in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
This year's decision comes against a backdrop of improving US-China relations and coordination between Beijing and Washington on Asian anti-terror efforts.
President George W. Bush's administration is also trying to convince China to pressure North Korea, its purported ally, to end a dangerous nuclear crisis.
Beijing, which wields veto power in the UN Security Council, was also courted by US officials in the ultimately unsuccessful drive to win international support for the US-led invasion of Iraq. It is thought Beijing promised not to veto an Iraq resolution.
"I don't know if there is a trade-off here," said Jendrzejczyk.
"But I am afraid that those inside China who are struggling to bring about change may see this as a geo-strategic decision by both the Europeans and Americans not to offend China because of its prominent role in a whole series of strategic issues."