Zeya, who led the US delegation at the talks, said US diplomats “conveyed our deep concern about attempts to control and silence activists by targeting family members and associates of the activists.”

“This is a worrisome trend, and one which we have raised at senior levels with the Chinese government,” she said, adding the dialogue fell short of Washington’s expectations.

Rights watchers have been alarmed by the targeting of relatives of high-profile dissidents, including blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who exposed abuses in the enforcement of China’s one-child policies, and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned since 2009 on subversion charges after he campaigned for peaceful democratic change in China.

Chen’s relatives have been harassed in their hometown in Shandong province. Liu’s wife has been placed under house arrest in Beijing and her brother recently was sentenced to 11 years in prison over a business dispute, a stiff penalty in what supporters say is a vendetta against the family for Liu’s activism.

Zeya said US officials questioned the pattern of arrests and extralegal detentions of China’s public interest lawyers, Internet activists and others who challenge official policies in China.

“We know that such actions are contrary to China’s international obligation and, indeed in most cases, China’s own laws and constitution,” she said.

Zeya said the US raised specific cases of individuals who are imprisoned, detained or under house arrest, including activists Xu Zhiyong, Gao Zhisheng and Ni Yulan, several Tibetan, Uighur and Mongolian activists, as well as Liu and his wife. Zeya said the Americans were able to get some information on the cases, but she did not reveal details.

Xu, who champions building a stronger civil society through his New Citizens Movement, he is in police detention on suspicion of gathering people to disturb public order.

Beijing has repeatedly rejected US criticism of China’s human rights record, saying Washington is biased and distorts the situation.

“China opposes US intervention of Chinese judicial system through individual cases and wishes the US would respect China’s judicial sovereignty and stop its practice of badgering with individual cases,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Wang Dong, associate professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies, said having a dialogue is better than no talks, even though the two sides have sharp differences and there was no breakthrough in the latest dialogue.

“It’s a way to increase mutual understanding,” Wang said, adding the talks have led to more common ground between Beijing and Washington than two decades ago.