President George W. Bush said that the US trade imbalance with China was "bothersome" and Beijing should do more to open the country's markets and promote greater currency flexibility.
Speaking before a four-nation trip to Asia, Bush told a round-table with Asian journalists that the revaluation of China's yuan in July was a "a strong step forward."
But he plans to press Chinese President Hu Jintao further on the currency issue at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting next week and during a visit to Beijing.
"I will remind him that this government believes they should continue to advance toward market-based evaluation of their currency, for the sake of the world, not just for the sake of bilateral relations," Bush said.
"The trade balance between China and the United States is bothersome to people here," added Bush, who urged greater access for U.S. businesses to China's markets.
Before attending the Nov. 18-19 APEC summit in South Korea, Bush will visit Kyoto, Japan. After APEC, he will go to Beijing and then on to Mongolia.
Bush and Hu last met on the sidelines of the United Nations summit in September. Hu had been scheduled to visit Bush at the White House in early September but the meeting was postponed because of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.
Bush said that he and Hu had a "very good" personal relationship but described Sino-American relations as "mixed."
Sens. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, have introduced a bill that would threaten China with a 27.5 percent tariff on its exports to the United States unless Beijing takes further steps to revalue its currency.
Bush said he hopes at the APEC meeting to place "a strong focus on intellectual property rights throughout the world" as well as the need for further discussions about cooperation on energy issues.
"China is a vast, significant, growing economy that is -- using more and more energy. And here is an area where all of us can work together - and that is on how to share technologies and use technologies in such a way that we become less dependent on hydrocarbons," Bush said.
He said he plans to emphasize on the Asia trip the importance of making progress at the World Trade Organization's Doha round of trade talks in Hong Kong in December.
Preparations to deal with a possible bird flu pandemic were also among the issues Bush said he wanted to raise with Hu and other Asian leaders.
"I'll bring it up again, because I am concerned about a pandemic - and I'm not suggesting it's going to break out in any country. But if it were to break out anywhere in the world, it becomes an international issue," he said.
Bush, a Methodist known for speaking publicly about his faith, said he also wanted to press the issue of religious freedom with Hu.
"I will continue to remind President Hu about, for example, (about) my personal faith and the belief that people should be allowed to worship freely," he said.
China and seven other countries were again designated "countries of particular concern" in the Bush administration's report on religious freedom.
The annual report from the State Department said China, North Korea and Myanmar were totalitarian or authoritarian states that "regard some or all religious groups as enemies of the state because of their religious beliefs or their independence from central authority."
