Just (when) the Chinese are learning the win-win nature of trade, Americans should not forget how the idea works," the chief architect of the Bush administration's trade policy said in a speech to the Asia Society. "There is much at stake for both countries, and the world, in how China and the United States exercise power and responsibility."

With the US presidential election looming, President George W. Bush has been on the defensive because of the loss of some 2.6 million manufacturing jobs since he took office.

White House economic advisor Gregory Mankiw recently gave Democrats new ammunition to attack the administration's trade policies when he said the movement of some jobs overseas was probably good for the US economy in the long run.

The manufacturing sector's struggle to climb out a prolonged slump has focused congressional attention on China, which ran a record $125 billion trade surplus with the United States in 2003.

Leading Democratic presidential candidate San. John Kerry of Massachusetts has faulted the Bush administration for not being more aggressive in dealing with China.

Zoellick painted a different picture of the trade relations with what the World Bank has said is now the world's second largest economy in terms of purchasing power.

He criticised Beijing for not honouring all the commitments it made when it joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001. But he also said Americans have benefited from being able to sell more products to the China, as well as from being able to buy low-priced Chinese goods.

"China is not another 'Japan Inc.' -- an export-driven machine that shunned imports and the participation of foreign business. China sells, but it also buys," Zoellick said.

However, he warned Beijing's failure to enforce copyright and patent protections on goods ranging from music CDs to manufacturing equipment threatens to subvert knowledge industries and innovation around the world.

"If we can make it, they can fake it," he said.

China also is using tax policies and product standards to unfairly block imports of semiconductors and wireless data products, Zoellick said, citing two other examples of where the country is not meeting its WTO commitments.

Zoellick, who visited Beijing on a recent nine-country trip to boost troubled world trade talks, said China had a special responsibility to help revive and conclude those negotiations because of its growing importance in the world economy.