BEIJING (Reuters) — President George W. Bush’s visit to Beijing, which ended on Monday, had the trappings of a whistle-stop campaign appearance intended to sell his message that the United States wants China to free up its politics and economy before the two countries can move closer.But the closely scripted encounter between Bush and his Chinese hosts seemed to retrace, not narrow, the differences, analysts said.

“Both sides are paying more attention to the relationship and trying to define and shape it,” said Jin Canrong, an expert on Chinese-US relations at the People’s University of China in Beijing. “But without any urgent issues demanding attention, this visit was always going to be exploratory, not defining.”

Bush visited a state-controlled church on Sunday, where he renewed a call for religious freedom in China. Later that day he lectured China’s leaders about the value of liberty and the need for China to loosen currency controls, strengthen intellectual property protection, and close its trade gap with the United States.

While China’s leaders sidestepped direct dispute with Bush on these issues, they sent their own message swaddled in diplomatic rhetoric — that China wants to protect its rising economic and political power, but not confront the United States.

Chinese President Hu Jintao repeated his refrain that China is a “peacefully developing” country whose rising wealth and influence need not threaten other countries.

Hu also promised to work towards a balanced flow of trade between the two countries, and to crack down on commercial “pirates” who illegally copy US films, music, software and patented goods.

China has a massive trade surplus with the United States — in the first 10 months of this year it shipped $132.5 billion of goods to the United States, while the United States shipped $39.8 billion to China.

China’s mantra about “peaceful development” is part of an evolving “counter-containment” strategy to blunt but not confront US diplomatic clout in Asia, said Evan Medeiros, a Washington-based expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Rand Corporation, a policy thinktank.

“It’s partly a reassurance strategy to help to build an environment where China’s not seen as a threat and other countries won’t work with the US to try to contain China,” he said.

The two countries’ differing expectations of the relationship — Washington seeking to pressure, Beijing seeking to reassure — were echoed in the rhetoric. Hu and Wen were non-committal on Bush’s demands for faster currency exchange rate liberalisation, which would probably make Chinese exports more expensive. They countered Bush’s human rights demands with assertions that China is already a democratic country that respects citizens’ rights.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Kong Quan, repeatedly told reporters the two countries had a “constructive partnership”.

But Bush avoided effusive terms and repeated his view that the two countries have a “complex relationship”.

Bush told reporters on Sunday the United States would continue to pressure China on trade and “consistently remind our Chinese friends that structural reform is what the United States government is talking about with China”.

Experts said beneath their soothing public statements, China’s leaders also believe Washington is seeking to undermine the Communist Party’s grip on power and rein in China’s rising influence. “Although the US constantly declares that the US welcomes a strong, peaceful and prosperous China, it also never forgets to view China as the main strategic threat to its interests,” Men Honghua, a researcher at the Central Party School, a training school for Chinese leaders, wrote in a recent commentary.

China welcomed Bush’s reassurances that the United States does not support formal independence for Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its own. But many in China continue to distrust the ultimate intentions, said Jia Qingguo, an expert on Chinese-American relations at Peking University.

“There are questions on the Chinese side about US intentions, and as long as Chinese people feel that way, full trust will be impossible,” he said.