text: WASHINGTON – Differences often dominate U.S.-Chinese summits, but Friday's meeting between President Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin is expected to be a sober exchange on their shared concerns about a nuclear-armed North Korea.
  Both governments say they don't want to see North Korea in the nuclear camp. The big question is whether the two countries can agree on a joint strategy to minimize the threat both believe is posed by the North's newly disclosed weapons program.
  Trade, Taiwan, Iraq and human rights all will be on the agenda at Bush's Texas ranch, but North Korea will transcend all other issues.
  Jiang, 72, probably will be meeting with Bush for the last time as China's leader since he is expected to make a gradual exit from power in the months ahead. But the Bush administration is not treating him as a lame duck.
  China often is billed as North Korea's closest ally, but Beijing has on occasion been at odds with its reclusive neighbor.
  After China joined the nuclear club in 1964, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung asked for China's help in developing a nuclear weapons of its own. Chinese leader Mao Zedong said no.
  At Friday's meeting in Crawford, Texas, Bush will wonder how far Jiang will be willing to go in pressuring North Korea to reverse course on its nuclear weapons program.
  "If the Bush administration's goal is regime change, the Chinese would be very much opposed to that,'' he said. "Getting rid of weapons is one thing. Getting rid of regimes is another.''
  The United States, Japan and South Korea "should end all food and fuel aid to North Korea immediately'' and encourage Russia and China to do the same until North Korea takes steps to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs, say Heritage researchers Balbina Y. Hwang, Larry M. Wortzel and Baker Spring.
  Hoping to deflect criticism of its policy toward Tibet, China has released a Tibetan nun from prison and received a representative of Tibet's exiled Bhuddist leader, the Dalai Lama.
  It also has taken several steps over the past two months to ease U.S. concerns about China's proliferation activities on both the nuclear and biological weapons fronts.