Beijing ? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said today that the global recession seemed to be losing force but that it will be critical for the United States and China to institute major economic reforms to put the world on a more sustained footing.

Geithner said that a successful transition to a more balanced and stable global economy will require substantial changes to economic policy and financial regulation around the world and especially in the world’s largest and third largest economies.

Geithner gave a major economic address at Peking University, where he had studied Chinese as a college student more than two decades ago.

The Obama administration’s chief economic spokesman was using his first trip to China as treasury secretary to pursue closer economic ties with China, seeking to turn the page on years of acrimony between the two countries over contentious trade issues.