WASHINGTON - An advisor to US President Barack Obama on Tuesday spoke highly of a nuclear security center recently opened in China, saying the United States is encouraged by China's leadership in the realm.

Earlier this month, the Nuclear Security Center of Excellence, the largest nuclear security center in the Asia-Pacific region, which was financed by both governments, opened in Beijing.

"We're really quite encouraged by the leadership that China is beginning to show in the nuclear security realm, not only in managing its own material but in creating a platform for cooperation regionally and internationally through the Center of Excellence that it's been carrying out," Laura Holgate, special assistant to Obama and a senior director at the National Security Council, said at a briefing in Washington ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit slated for Thursday and Friday.

Calling the launch of the center a "milestone" in the history of US-China nuclear cooperation, Holgate said the United States is pleased with the role China is showing in terms of cooperating with other countries internationally on the nuclear security issue.

The center, conceived by the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) and the US Department of Energy, has the capacity to train about 2,000 nuclear security staff from China and other Asia-Pacific nations each year.

The center will provide a forum for bilateral and regional best practice exchanges, and serve as a venue for demonstrating advanced technologies related to nuclear security.

"We hope to share that partnership and to see Chinese leadership in that realm increase even further," Holgate said.

China and the United States agreed to establish the center at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in 2010.

Under the agreement, the center, located in the Fangshan District, Beijing, is run and administered by China, while the United States provides nuclear-security equipment.