China is willing to increase imports from the United States and resume human rights dialogue with the US side, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said yesterday.

"China is ready to hold human rights dialogue with the US side on the basis of equality and mutual respect," Yang said.

Yang's remarks came in the wake of a US government annual report on human rights across the world, which is critical of China.

"But we are strongly opposed to the practices of clinging to the Cold War mentality, drawing lines according to ideology, launching confrontation and exercising double standards on human rights issues, and interfering in China's domestic affairs in the name of human rights," he said.

Yang said trade and economic cooperation benefit both sides, and the trade imbalance can be attributable to economic globalization on the one hand and the trade structure on the other.

China has been a favored destination for international investment. Some 60 percent of China's exports to the US are produced by foreign companies or Chinese-foreign joint ventures.

"Many of them are US companies," Yang said.

While China has surplus in commodity trade, the US side enjoys surplus in service trade, said Yang.

He emphasized that "the United States' strict limitation on high-tech export to China is a major reason for China's surplus and the US deficit in China-US trade."

China is willing to increase imports from the US.