The top Chinese official at talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says Americans are failing to understand China as they press for faster action on currency and market opening.

Vice Premier Wu Yi said Thursday that China was making changes as the two sides launched a two-day gathering billed as a long-range "strategic economic dialogue."

The talks resumed Friday morning at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing but no details were immediately released.

On Thursday, Paulson and other officials urged Beijing to ease currency controls and open markets both to help shore up U.S. free-trade sentiment and to benefit China's own economy.

But Wu said China faces unusual challenges due to its poverty and a history of colonial domination.

"We have had the genuine feeling that some American friends are not only having limited knowledge of, but harboring much misunderstanding about, the reality in China," she said, according to a text of her speech released by the government.

China's mounting trade surpluses with the United States have fueled complaints by American manufacturers that Beijing keeps the Chinese yuan undervalued, giving its exporters an unfair price advantage.

The United States says its November trade gap with China swelled to US$24.4 billion (euro18.4 billion). It is on track to hit US$229 billion (euro173 billion) this year, far above last year's record US$202 billion (euro152 billion) level.

The export surge has nudged up the yuan, which on Thursday was allowed to rise to its highest level since Beijing began easing controls in July 2005, partly in response to American prodding. Chinese stock markets also rose to a five-year high.

Paulson has tried to downplay expectations of breakthroughs in this week's talks, describing them as the start of a long-term discussion.

Meeting with Wu, Paulson said China's move to a floating exchange rate could take place over "several years."

Paulson's delegation also includes Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, as well as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

On Thursday, the officials also discussed the development of China's economic reforms, trade and investment disputes, financial services liberalization and Beijing's World Trade Organization commitments, Schwab said afterward.

"We talked about the importance of China being in compliance with the letter and the spirit of its WTO obligations, not because the U.S. asked for it but because it is in China's own interests," she said.