BEIJING, March 3: China on Thursday accused the United States of serious human rights violations and told Washington to clean up its own act before "wantonly trampling on the sovereignty of other countries".

In its annual Human Rights Record of the United States, China hit out at the atrocity of US troops in Iraq and criticized the Bush administration for failing to deal with poverty, racial discrimination and crime at home.

It was published just days after the US released its own annual human rights report, which accused China of muting dissent, suppressing religious rights and restricting freedom of speech.

"Despite tons of problems in its own human rights, the United States continues to stick to its belligerent stance, wantonly trampling on the sovereignty of other countries," said the report, the sixth China has issued.

"The United States should reflect on its erroneous behaviour on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously instead of indulging itself in publishing the 'human rights country report' to censure other countries unreasonably."

China suspended its human rights dialogue with the US a year ago in protest at Washington's decision to seek a resolution condemning Beijing's rights record at a UN Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva. But foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao indicated it was time to resume the talks. "The report is an alarm bell to alert the United States to its own problems," he said after its release. "The best way to improve this kind of situation is to sit down and have dialogue on an equal footing."

The report, which widely cited media and aid group reports and official US statistics, focused on US abuse of Iraqi prisoners. "In 2004 the atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States," it said, adding that the United States "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks."

"A survey on Iraqi civilian deaths, based on the natural death rate before the war, estimates that the US-led invasion might have led to 100,000 more deaths in the country, with most victims being women and children."

It also charged that the United States has been "hindering" the work of the United Nation's human rights mechanism. "And it either took no notice of or used delaying tactics on the requests of relevant UN agencies to visit its Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba."

Domestically, Americans were "threatened by rampant violent crimes and severe infringement of civil rights by law enforcement departments". It highlighted the widely publicized case of Chinese citizen Zhao Yan who was handcuffed and beaten last year while in the United States on a business trip.

'DEMOCRACY FOR THE RICH': The report also lashed out at the US being a democracy "manipulated by the rich", saying four billion dollars was spent on the presidential election while "poverty, hunger and homelessness haunt the United States".