BANGKOK—US President George W. Bush used some of his sternest language to knock China’s human rights record in a big speech in neighboring Thailand on the day before Beijing finally unveils its Olympic Games.

Message delivered, mission accomplished. Now bring on the sports.

In a speech in Bangkok just hours before flying to Beijing on Thursday, Bush publicly pressed China to improve its human rights record.

He voiced “firm opposition” to China’s detention of dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists.

“The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings,” Bush said in comments likely to anger China’s communist leadership.

Stain-free Olympics

“We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights not to antagonize China’s leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential,” he said.

Beijing is accused of cracking down on dissent ahead of the Games instead of granting more freedoms, as originally promised.

Analysts said Bush’s speech, which also praised Beijing’s regional leadership and cautious social reforms, was carefully structured and timed to try to satisfy critics at home while respecting China’s intense desire for a stain-free Olympics.

N. Korea also slammed

In a wide-ranging speech billed as an Asia policy statement, Bush touched on everything from North Korea’s nuclear program, to regional security and trans-Pacific trade.

China responded tersely, but signaled it considered the matter over.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Qin Gang said China firmly opposed “any words or acts that interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues.”

“Chinese government puts people first, and is dedicated to maintaining and promoting its citizens’ basic rights and freedom. Chinese citizens have freedom of religion. These are indisputable facts,” Qin said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

Bush had faced criticism from rights groups not only for attending the Games but also for not speaking out more forcefully against Beijing’s crackdown in the run-up to the showpiece event.

He has chided China on human rights before, focusing especially on restrictions on religious freedom, and drew the Chinese government’s ire by meeting dissidents at the White House ahead of his weeklong farewell trip to East Asia.

Bush made it clear in Seoul on Wednesday that he had no intention of using the Olympics as a platform for lecturing China on human rights, though he intends to discuss such matters privately with President Hu Jintao.

Wake up

While acknowledging China’s growing economic clout, he also said Beijing should wake up to the wider responsibilities that that entails.

“We are making clear to China that being a global economic leader carries with it the duty to act responsibly on matters from energy to the environment to development in places like Africa,” he said.

Another focus of Bush’s visit to Thailand is neighboring Burma (Myanmar), which is under heavy US sanctions to try to bring an end to 46 years of unbroken military rule.

“The American people care deeply about the people of Burma and dream for the day the people will be free,” he told dissidents and former political prisoners at an hour-long lunch.