WASHINGTON - Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping attended a luncheon hosted by his US counterpart Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here on Tuesday.

Addressing the luncheon, Xi defended China's human rights record, saying there's "no best," only "better" on human rights.

Xi, while acknowledging the enormous challenges faced by the Chinese government, emphasized tremendous and well-recognized achievements made by China in its human rights efforts over the past 30 years.

"Given China's huge population, considerable regional diversity and uneven development, we are still faced with many challenges in improving people's livelihood and advancing human rights," Xi said.

"The Chinese government will always put peoples' interests first and take seriously people's aspirations and demands," he added.

"We will, in light of China's national conditions, continue to take concrete and effective policies and measures to promote social fairness, justice and harmony and push forward China's course of human rights," Xi said.

China is ready to conduct candid, constructive dialogue and exchanges on human rights with the United States and other countries on the basis of equality and mutual respect, so as to enhance understanding, bridge differences, learn from each other and make improvements together, the vice-president said.

Besides defending China's human rights record, Xi also stressed that China-US ties have become one of the most important, dynamic and promising bilateral relationships in the world.

"For China and the United States, the world's biggest developing country and the world's largest economy, there is no beaten track to follow when it comes to establishing a new cooperative partnership which is an important and innovative job with far-reaching consequences," the Chinese vice president said.

It is quite common that divergences exist between the two countries in human rights and other regional and international issues, Xi said, adding that the key to handling the differences properly is mutual respect, noninterference in each other's internal affairs and candid communications.

He also conveyed firm belief that China and the United States have the wisdom and capacities needed to maintain and develop their cooperative partnership based on equality and mutual benefit.

Xi also expressed hope that the two countries make their ties a model for relations between countries of different social systems, historical and cultural backgrounds, and mode of development.

Biden and Clinton, for their part, said Xi's visit falls on the 40-year anniversary of US President Richard Nixon's historic, ice-breaking trip to China in 1972.

That historic diplomatic step made by China and the US has fundamentally changed their ties and brought huge benefits to the two countries and the world, they said.

US-China cooperation constitutes an integral part of solving global challenges and has great influence on the development of the world in the 21st century.

The US is ready to work with China to promote communications, strengthen mutual trust and further boost development of their cooperative partnership.

Xi arrived in Washington on Monday for a five-day official visit to the United States. He met with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.