BEIJING -- Human rights experts on Monday urged the United States to improve its own human rights record and stop using human rights as a foreign policy tool.

The United States has yet to address many severe human rights issues of its own, a fact widely recognized by the international community and by many inside the country, Li Yunlong, a professor at Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told a press conference in Beijing.

For instance, guns ownership has run rampant in the United States and poses a great threat to citizens' lives and safety, said Li, a member of the China Society for Human Rights Studies.

The unemployment and poverty rates among the African American community are at least twice those among the white community, whereas wealth in the hands of the white community is 12 times that possessed by African Americans, Li said, citing survey results.

The press conference was held by the Information Office of the State Council days after the US and several other countries issued a joint statement alleging China's human rights record is deteriorating.

The US is motivated by its national interests and its ambition to continue to dominate the world, said Liu Hainian, director of the Human Rights Institution under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The US uses human rights as a foreign policy tool to maintain world hegemony, Liu commented.

China has advocated exploring ways to improve the world's human rights through such mechanisms as human rights dialogues with the United States and Europe, on the basis of equality and mutual respect, said Chang Jian, deputy director of the Research Center for Human Rights at Nankai University.

The US inclination to take a highly confrontational and selective stance, and to greatly politicize human rights, will impede the world's human rights development, Chang added.