Jonathan Pershing, who was part of a U.S. delegation that returned this week from Beijing, said the Chinese are looking to the U.S. for ideas and technology to retool its high-carbon industry.

"They want from us technology, and we want from them action," Pershing said on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks. "There's room for agreement there."

But the Chinese "don't want any technology. They want some of the advanced technologies which are part of our own intellectual capital," Pershing told Public Radio International's Living on Earth program.

The mission to Beijing by Pershing and Todd Stern, President Barack Obama's climate envoy, underscored the paramount role of quiet diplomacy in reaching critical political deals — outside the conference halls of the 192-nation U.N. negotiations, where delegations tend to repeat entrenched positions.

An understanding between the U.S. and China, the world's two largest polluters, is essential for the talks to succeed in crafting a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. That agreement, which expires in 2012, calls on 37 industrial countries to cut emissions by a total of 5 percent from 1990 levels but made no demands on developing countries.

The U.S. has made it clear that China must be part of a new climate package, and that without China there's no deal.

But Stern was quoted as saying in Beijing on Thursday the U.S. was not demanding that China accept mandatory emissions targets. "We don't expect China to take a national cap at this stage," Stern was quoted as telling the China Daily.

China, India and other developing countries say targets would constrain their economic growth, and their first priority is to fight poverty.

"We have 400 million people who don't have access to electricity," said Shyam Saran, the chief delegate from India, which is another key player. India's population is about 1.2 billion.

At a rare news conference in Bonn, Saran held fast to India's insistence that industrialized countries deepen their emissions cuts to a total of 40 percent below 1990 levels within the next decade, while at the same time rejecting emissions targets for developing countries.

Saran said developing countries would consider measures to curb the growth of emissions, but only in exchange for technology and funding from the rich countries. Funding could reach $250 billion a year, he said.

Delegations in Bonn have been working on a draft text of an agreement, due to be completed in December at a major conference in the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

The draft, which began with 53 pages, has ballooned to some 200 pages as delegations inserted language to be negotiated later. The second draft was expected to be whittled down to a more manageable size at the next round of talks in August.

Saran said the U.N. talks were mandated only to build on existing agreements, not negotiate a new treaty. "The Kyoto Protocol remains a valid legal document," he said. India and the developing countries face no obligations under the Kyoto pact as it stands.

Veteran India watchers said Saran's line, virtually unchanged from last year, appeared to be a negotiating tactic.

"India is holding the line," said Richie Ahuja, the India Policy Coordinator for the Washington-based Environmental Defense Fund.

But in the end India will likely have to sign on to a new climate deal because it would translate into a flow of funds from the rich countries and the chance to take part in a lucrative new carbon market.

Environmentalists said they saw little movement on major issues from any of the negotiators, and that the gap between rich and poor countries was increasing.

"It's clear they are building up their fortresses," said Tasneem Essop of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.