KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (AFP) — The United States is more concerned with seeing an improvement in human rights in China than with Beijing's complaints over a meeting this week between President George W. Bush and Chinese dissidents, the White House said Friday.
"We are less concerned with their public comments than we are with actions on the ground in China," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport.
"We would like to see an improvement in human rights, freedom and democracy in their country and they know where the president stands," she said. "And so I think we are just less concerned about what they would say about the president meeting with dissidents than actually what happens inside the country."
Bush's meeting on Tuesday with five Chinese dissidents, including Rebiya Kadeer from the Muslim Uighur minority, drew sharp criticism from China before it hosts the Olympics next week.
The Chinese foreign ministry has criticized the meeting at the White House residence between Bush and five leading Chinese dissidents, saying it sent a "seriously wrong message."
"We express strong discontent and firm opposition to this," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement.
"By arranging such a meeting between its leader (Bush) and these people and making irresponsible remarks on China's human rights and its religious situation, the US side has rudely interfered in China's internal affairs and sent a seriously wrong message to hostile anti-China forces."
Bush's scheduled trip next week to Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games comes amid demands from human rights groups and US lawmakers to use the occasion to speak out more aggressively about rights abuses in China.
Bush has said that he accepted the invitation to the August 8 opening ceremonies to support US athletes.
In a delicate balancing act, the US president has vowed to take a "message of freedom" to next week's Olympics but rejected appeals from rights activists to boycott the gala in protest of China's overall rights record, including a crackdown in Tibet in March.
He is due to attend church services during his visit and to speak about religious freedom, officials said.
The White House on Friday defended Bush's policy toward China against some calls for tougher approach.
"I can't imagine what else you would recommend that we do, except for try to work with them, provide access to some of the dissidents to the White House, where they could tell their stories," Perino said.
"And these stories got told all around the world because of President Bush having that meeting."
She added that "you are not going to see immediate change overnight in any country when they are moving to be more modern."
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