BEIJING, Jan 9 (Reuter) - China warned the United States on Thursday that slowly warming Sino-U.S. ties could be complicated if Washington decided to confront Beijing on the issue of human rights.

``If the human rights question is made into an issue to interfere in China's internal affairs, then this problem will become more and more complicated,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang told a regular news briefing.

``The Chinese government cannot accept... using the human rights question to put pressure on the Chinese government or to interfere in China's internal affairs,'' Shen said.

Repeated clashes over human rights and issues ranging from Taiwan to copyright piracy sent Sino-U.S. relations into a tailspin in 1995 and 1996, and ties have only recently started to recover with a series of high-level official meetings.

Differences in U.S. and Chinese views towards human rights were normal and could be resolved through talks, Shen said.

``But if you are confrontational then the basis for dialogue will be lost,'' Shen said in response to a question about China's reaction to comments by U.S. Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright which slammed Beijing's human rights record.

Albright said at her Senate confirmation hearing in Washington on Wednesday that the United States could co-sponsor a resolution criticising China's human rights record and present it before the United Nations Human Rights Commission when it meets in Geneva early this year.

Last April, China succeeded in quashing a U.S.-backed draft resolution at the commission expressing concern over continuing reports of Chinese violations of fundamental freedoms.

The human rights situation in China had not improved much since the forwarding of last year's resolution, Albright said.

But she said Washington's focus towards Beijing would be on ``Chinese integration, not isolation'' and that she still supported the separation of human rights issues from trade.

In 1995, U.S. President Bill Clinton delinked annual renewal of China's Most Favoured Nation trade benefits from Beijing's human rights record, a move hailed by Beijing.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited Beijing last November but made little public mention of human rights, in contrast to his 1994 trip that ended in disaster because of wrangling over the issue.

Christopher pledged not to allow Sino-U.S. ties to be derailed by any single issue.

Clinton met his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Philippines last December, when the two leaders agreed to an exchange of state visits in 1997.

Washington has criticised Beijing for its imprisonment of political dissidents and for its heavy-handed rule in Tibet but China defends its human rights record by pointing to rising living standards and booming economic growth.

China jailed several prominent dissidents in 1996 as part of its obsession with stability coupled with the easing of foreign pressure on its human rights record, activists have said.

The official Xinhua news agency said meanwhile that China and the United States had agreed to hold another round of talks this month aimed at hammering out a new textile pact.

The bilateral pact had been scheduled to expire on December 31 last year but was extended until January 31 amid progress on renewing the 1994 accord. The talks will begin in Beijing on January 27.