The Obama administration said it remained committed to pursuing a broad relationship with China, which reacted furiously to a US announcement Friday it was selling 6.4 billion dollars in weapons to Taiwan.

Beijing has always strongly opposed US sales to Taiwan, which it considers a Chinese territory awaiting reunification. But in a new step, China pledged to punish the US companies involved in the deal.

"I think our reaction to that... (is) that would not be warranted," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said of the Chinese threats.

Gibbs said that Obama had spoken to Chinese leaders when he visited Beijing in November about the question of arms sales to Taiwan, and other issues.

"We've always said that we want the type of relationship where we're working together on important issues of mutual concern," Gibbs said.

"But when we have disagreements ... we'll voice those disagreements out in the open, in public.

"I think that's the type of relationship we've had with China during this administration and one that we'll continue to have."

Obama has tried to pursue wide-ranging cooperation with China, saying that the world's largest developed and developing economies can work together on issues from climate change to the North Korean and Iranian nuclear disputes.

But relations have hit a rough patch on a range of disputes including Google's revelations last month that China had been hacking into accounts of the company and human rights activists.

Another row may be fast approaching as Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is visiting the United States in late February.

Obama came under intense criticism at home last year for not meeting with the Dalai Lama so as not to sour the mood before the president's trip to China.

The US side agreed that Obama would meet later with the Dalai Lama, who is widely respected in the United States but vilified by China.

US companies involved in the Taiwan deal all declined to comment other than to say that the issue concerned governments and not individual firms.

An official at one company noted that China did not reveal details about the sanctions, making it difficult to gauge the impact.

US defense contractors sell little to China, which has been under a US and EU arms embargo since its bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

But Boeing Co. -- whose McDonnell Douglas unit was given a 37 million-dollar contract for 12 Harpoon missiles to Taiwan -- is an aerospace giant which counts China as one of its largest markets.

Nonetheless, Boeing shares were up nearly two percent on the New York Stock Exchange, well outpacing the benchmark Dow index, after Obama's budget proposal outlined new business for the company with NASA.

Boeing has deep ties with the aviation industry in China, which could stand to lose if it sanctioned the aviation giant.

Three Chinese companies are under contract to produce key parts of Boeing's emblematic 787 Dreamliner, which took to the skies in December after a more than two-year delay.

Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank, said that the sanctions threats came from Chinese officials involved in diplomacy, not the economy.

"It's really too early to tell, but I think it's just a lot of noise," Lohman said of the sanctions threats.

"I'm sure that companies have all calculated their risks" in China before seeking arms contracts in Taiwan, he said.

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