Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) acknowledged US-Chinese trade frictions on Tuesday and promised US President George W. Bush to try to ease a trade imbalance that is of growing concern in Washington.
"What I would like to stress here is that China does not pursue a huge trade surplus with the United States and we're willing to work with the United States to take effective measures to increase China's imports from the United States," Hu said at the start of a meeting with Bush.
The talks, arranged after Bush canceled a high-profile visit to the White House by Hu because of Hurricane Katrina, covered the gamut of US-Chinese relations, including the vexed issue of human rights.
Bush had an aide hand the Chinese side a list of specific human rights and religious freedom cases of concern to the US during the encounter.
A senior US official, Asian expert Michael Green of the White House National Security Council, would not give details of the list, saying the US hoped to work with the Chinese quietly to resolve the cases.
Hu invited Bush to visit China during a November trip to Asia, and Bush accepted. They also reiterated their commitment to persuading North Korea to give up nuclear weapons in six-party talks that resumed in Beijing on Tuesday.
Bush received an expression of support from Hu for diplomatic efforts aimed at persuading Iran to give up its uranium conversion work as part of its future nuclear program.
But Green said Hu gave no specific commitment to support referring Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions in the nuclear dispute, a possibility US officials have talked about.
"The tone was the right tone but the specifics and the specific commitments, that's for the follow-up," Green said.
Chinese official He Yafei (何亞飛) later told reporters China hoped to resolve Iran's nuclear issue through the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But he did not elaborate.
Hu expressed sympathy for the losses inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.
"May the American people overcome the disaster and rebuild their beautiful homes at an early date," he said.
The two leaders met at a time of strains between their governments over China's growing economic power. China's trade surplus with the US was US$10 billion last month, the third highest on record.
"There's no denial that our bilateral trade has developed so fast and to such a large scale, it is inevitable that we may have some frictions," Hu said.
He, director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's North America and Oceania division, said Hu urged the US to relax export restrictions on high technology equipment. The US curbs govern items with military use.
Pirating of goods such as computer software and compact discs by Chinese companies has long been a source of concern in Washington.
The Bush administration is considering filing a formal complaint to the WTO over Chinese counterfeit of US copyrighted products, US Trade Representative Rob Portman told USA Today newspaper.
Hu promised to work on ways to prevent infringement of such rights -- a statement welcomed by US officials.
Bush told Hu that Beijing's recent move to loosen its exchange rate was a "good first step" but more should be done.
In July, Beijing abandoned a peg that had kept the yuan at about 8.28 to the US dollar.
US manufacturers had long complained that the yuan's peg to the dollar had given China an unfair price advantage on world markets.
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