The United States wants China to reflect its growing importance in global trade by doing more to revive deadlocked WTO trade liberalisation talks, the top U.S. trade official said yesterday.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in Beijing that she had pressed China to help rescue the Doha round of global trade talks, which was suspended last month after key countries again failed to agree on how to cut tariffs and barriers.

China, she said, needed to show its commitment to trade liberalisation by speaking up for itself, rather than retiring behind India and Brazil, the most vocal developing countries.

?China is not, and will never be, a small, defenceless developing country in the global trading system,? she told reporters. ?China has as much interest in an open trading system as any country in the world.?

The Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations began nearly five years ago with the aim of boosting trade and fighting poverty in underdeveloped countries by lowering trade barriers.

But the tortuous talks have broken down, with the European Union blaming the United States for not offering enough in farm goods tariff cuts. Deep tariff cuts proposed later by the United States were not matched by other countries.

Schwab is attending a series of trade meetings in Asia, Brazil and Australia over the next month, seeking to shore up dwindling hopes for a breakthrough. She left Beijing yesterday.