China's aim to expand its nuclear power generation capability and moves to embrace the newest generation of nuclear reactors were very impressive, he told an audience of students at the prestigious Tsinghua University.

"China is going to emerge in this century as a global leader in nuclear energy," he said during a two-day visit to Beijing.

"We hope we can learn more from your progress in this area so that it might be possible for us in America to see an expansion of nuclear energy in the years ahead," said Abraham, who is due to be replaced by treasury deputy secretary Samuel Bodman.

Beijing, struggling with power shortages that pose a threat to economic growth, has outlined an ambitious plan to build dozens of reactors over the next couple of decades and quadruple its nuclear power capacity to 36,000 megawatts by 2020.

The government hopes nuclear power will account for about 4 percent of total output by 2020 from around 1.7 percent.

A senior US official said in October Washington would likely approve the reactor sale to China in the next few months.

Approval would be a victory for Pittsburgh-based, British-owned Westinghouse Electric Co., which applied in February to build two of its 1,100 megawatt, next-generation AP1000 reactors in China.

Nils Diaz, chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said at that time the United States was expected to ask China not to sell the next-generation nuclear technology to countries such as Iran and North Korea.

Former US President Bill Clinton cleared the way for US reactor sales to China in 1998 under a bilateral cooperation pact after Beijing promised to stop selling to Iran.

But in the past two years, US officials have said Beijing might be backing away from that commitment. As recently as April, the administration imposed sanctions on five Chinese firms for trading with Iran, which Washington has accused of developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

Abraham said it was essential that China and the United States work together to ensure adequate global energy supplies given they accounted for a third of world energy consumption.

Beijing and Washington had agreed in January to form a US-China Energy Policy Dialogue to enhance bilateral cooperation in areas including energy efficiency and renewable energy, he said.

"We are now preparing to move forward on a policy level," Abraham said, adding this initially meant building on the work of international partnerships to which China and the US already belong.