BEIJING, Aug 15 AAP - Human rights groups today said they were disappointed with the early signs from talks between Australia and China aimed at improving rights standards in the world's largest country.

The Australia Tibet Council said it doubted any change would occur in China's human rights situation in the wake of the first round of what are expected to be annual talks between foreign ministry officials from both countries.

And Amnesty International said its expectations were not met by the outcome of the four days of talks, which came after Australia dropped its traditional co-sponsorship of an anti-China resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Despite optimism from Australian officials that the talks would help effect change in China, ATC president Alex Butler said China was showing a reluctance to make concrete commitments.

The only two outcomes, Ms Butler said, were Australia's handing of a list of political prisoners about whom Australia had concerns, and Canberra's pledge of $300,000 to go towards improving the human rights situation across China.

"I imagine the Chinese Government must be extremely pleased at what they have achieved," Ms Butler said in a statement.

"Not only has Australia agreed to give up raising the issue of human rights abuses in China and Tibet publicly at the United Nations in return for four days of private talks between bureaucrats, but in addition our government appears to be handing over $300,000 without a single commitment having been made from the Chinese side to improve its human rights record."

Ms Butler said the Chinese Government rarely responded to requests for information about individual prisoners.

"I don't see there's a great deal of pressure on China to respond in this case, especially as the talks won't resume for another 12 months, if at all."

Amnesty International's Sydney coordinator Maya Catsanis said while the holding of the talks was a welcome development, Amnesty was concerned about China's receptiveness to submissions about its rights record.

She said the group was particularly concerned by comments by a top Chinese negotiator, Wang Guangya, to the Australian media that there were no "political prisoners" in China, despite Amnesty's estimate there are more than 2,000 people being held for political beliefs. Wang said no discussion on political prisoners would be entertained by the Chinese side.

"We weren't expecting any great breakthroughs straight away, but we felt the talks could have been more constructive and more productive," she told AAP.

"It's good that the Australian Government handed over a list of political prisoners, but it's worth more if they are actually discussed."

She was looking forward to discussing the talks with Australian officials when they returned.

The officials had briefed Amnesty prior to the talks, Ms Catsanis said.