The head of the Bush administration’s “senior dialogue” with China, Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, says he’s confident of Beijing’s support on preventing a nuclear-armed Iran following a recent round of diplomacy. Negroponte says China’s agreement on a third round of UN sanctions against Iran showed that despite some differences, which include China’s investment in Iran’s energy sectors, “by and large China is in sync with us on this issue. And they certainly do not want Iran to become a nuclear-weapons state.” The expected new UN resolution, Negroponte added, is a sign that UN Security Council members remain concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions despite the recent U.S. intelligence report saying experts had “high confidence” Tehran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003.

He said: Iran has not been playing a constructive role. Almost on any issue that you examine you’ll see they are undertaking actions and positions that are almost diametrically opposed to ours, whether its fomenting instability in Lebanon, or supporting extremist militants in Iraq, or shipping weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan, or trying to frustrate the Middle East peace process. So I’m not sure what a sort of open-ended dialogue with Iran would get for us.