ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today the United States and China have a strong mutual interest in avoiding energy supply disruptions.

At the outset of two days of high-level discussions, Paulson told a conference in Annapolis, Md., the two nations need to intensify efforts to cooperate on a variety of energy and environmental issues.

"As the two largest net importers of oil, China and the United States face similar challenges as demand for energy increases," he said at the opening session of a meeting attended by the Bush administration's top economic policymakers and their counterparts from Beijing.

It was Paulson's fourth time to head a U.S. delegation of Cabinet officials in such a conference. The Chinese team was being led by a newcomer, Vice Premier Wang Qishan, who took over after the retirement earlier this year of former Vice Premier Wu Yi.

Paulson came up with the idea of the talks when he joined the administration in 2006 after leading investment giant Goldman Sachs. It was his belief that if the discussions between the two countries could be elevated to the highest level, then breakthroughs could be achieved on a number of thorny trade issues.

However, the results so far have been disappointing, and it is uncertain whether the next administration will decide to continue the talks, known as the Strategic Economic Dialogue.

Business groups, who believe the meetings have been beneficial, said it would be wise for the Chinese to produce results as a way of convincing the next occupant of the White House to keep the talks going. But other China experts said the Chinese delegation might believe that it is not worthwhile to offer too many economic concessions to a lame-duck administration when they can wait to negotiate with a new team.

This week's talks are being held at a time when the U.S. trade deficit with China jumped to an all-time high of $256.2 billion, the largest deficit ever recorded with a single country and an amount equal to nearly one-third of America's total trade deficit of $700.3 billion last year.

The two days of talks are expected to focus on the challenges both countries face with rising energy and food costs. China is the world's biggest consumer and producer of coal. Pollution from its coal-fired industries is believed to be a major factor in global warming.

But a U.S. effort to get China to promote greater energy efficiency as a way of reducing strains on global supplies is unlikely to achieve much success. That's because the Chinese have been moving in the opposite direction, providing ever greater subsidies to keep energy prices low as global prices have surged.