President Bush, right, and Chinese President Hu Jintao shake hands after their meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Sydney, Australia, on Thursday. Hu told the president his nation is doing more to guarantee its products are safe.

SYDNEY, Australia — Chinese President Hu Jintao, on the defensive over recalls of tainted toothpaste, pet food and toys, told President Bush today that Beijing was stepping up product safety inspections.

Hu was the first to bring up the sensitive subject about recent recalls that have stained the "Made in China" label. Bush expressed America's concern about the safety of imported products, and stressed to Hu that safety concerns did not amount to trade protectionism.

China has acknowledged that some manufacturers have cut corners and used substandard materials, but that the problem involves a relatively small portion of the nation's factories. Hu told Bush that the government has set up an agency to oversee the quality and safety of exports, and that officials responsible for wrongdoing have been held accountable.

"The president was quite articulate about product safety, and I appreciated his comments," Bush said after his sit down with Hu on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

At a joint news conference with the summit host, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Hu said his government was taking the product safety issue seriously.

"The Chinese side is willing and ready to work together with the international community to step up cooperation in quality inspections and examinations and further deepen mutually beneficial economic cooperation and trade," said Hu, speaking through a translator.

As they smiled for cameras after 90 minutes of discussion, Bush called Hu an "easy man to talk to."

The Chinese leader, who said he had a "friendly" and "candid" chat with Bush, invited Bush to the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

"He accepted the invitation to go to the Olympics, and he stressed that for him, he was going to the Olympics for the sports and not for any political statement," Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Jeffrey told reporters after the meeting.

Behind the handshakes and photo-op, however, lurked contentious issues in U.S.-China relations, including human rights, which are not easily resolved. "I had a chance to share once again with the president my belief in religious freedom and religious liberty," Bush said.

Hu personifies the international concern the U.S. shares over Beijing's rising clout. If China, already home to 1.3 billion people, continues to grow, its consumer market will be the world's second largest by 2015.

Jeffrey said the two nations were working on setting up a hot line between Washington and Beijing much like one the United States and the then-Soviet Union established during the Cold War.