Beijing ? The Chinese government has given U.S. officials a list of 51 political prisoners who have been granted sentence reductions or are being considered for early release, a gesture that comes as the Bush administration is weighing whether to sponsor a resolution criticizing China’s human rights record at a U.N. meeting next month.

The list was delivered last week to a State Department delegation visiting Beijing for discussions about resuming a formal U.S.-China dialogue on human rights, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights group in San Francisco.

China suspended the dialogue after the Bush administration sponsored a motion criticizing its record at last year’s meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. But China said in October that it was willing to resume formal talks, and officials have been meeting quietly with U.S. diplomats about arrangements.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry referred questions about the prisoner list to the Justice Ministry, where repeated phone calls to the spokesman’s office went unanswered over the past few days. State Department officials declined to comment on the list, citing sensitive negotiations with the Chinese.

John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, said the list included information about 56 people who have been imprisoned for political offenses in China. Fifty-one have been released early from prison, received sentence reductions or are being considered for reductions.

Of the remaining five, three were released from prison or labor camps after completing their full sentences, and two are scheduled to complete their sentences and go free by May.

None of the political prisoners who received clemency is prominent. But Kamm said the list could represent a significant change in Chinese policy because more than half of the prisoners on it were previously unknown to foreign governments and human rights groups, including one man serving an 18-year prison term and another a 17-year sentence.