China regrets that the United States has rebuffed space cooperation with China, the head of China's space agency told his American counterpart in Washington.

In a meeting Monday with US National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief Michael Griffin, Luo Ge reminisced how "very open" he found the United States when he first visited this country in 1980, and later in the 1990s.

A man looks at a China-made Shenzou spaceship model on display in 2005. China regrets that the United States has rebuffed space cooperation with China, the head of China's space agency told his American counterpart in Washington. [AFP]

"Now, it's the other way around," he said through an interpreter at the privately-run Center for Strategic International Studies, after meeting with Griffin.

The Pentagon has publicly said it considers China's space program a potential threat to the satellite systems so crucial to US military supremacy, a concern shared by many US lawmakers.

"I think a country, if it's open, is going to have progress, and if it's closed, then it's going to be left behind," Luo said.

From 1950 through the 1970s, he said, China was a closed society with a slow rate of development. In the 1980s it began making significant progress, showing it was interested in opening up. Today, he added, "China is very open."

Asked if China was interested in cooperating with the United States and other countries in the development of the International Space Station, Luo said: "We have always been interested, but we don't have (an admissions) ticket yet."

He also stressed that China was cooperating in space programs with Europe, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria and Venezuela.

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