(Adds quotes and details)
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The United States will insist China play by international trade rules, but will not move unilaterally to keep out China's exports, Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday.
"The policy of this administration is to say to China -- which occasionally the last administration was reluctant to do -- 'you're a major player on the world scene economically and you've got to play by the rules that everybody else plays by,'" Biden said in an interview on CNBC.
"'Not more stringent. We're not going to impose on you, or attempt to impose on you, restraints that benefit our economy inconsistent with international trade agreements that exist,'" Biden said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner angered China last week when he told senators at his confirmation hearing that China was manipulating its currency.
Biden emphasized the Obama administration has not made an official determination on that, even though Obama himself said during last year's presidential campaign that China manipulated its currency.
"The term of art that got everybody upset was manipulation. There's been no judgment based in the administration that there has been a manipulation because as you know that word triggers within trade agreements certain responses," Biden said.
"But it is clear that there has been a policy of the part of the Chinese government, that I would argue is inconsistent with their long-term economic well being, of having a total export economy and doing things that guarantee that, promoted that," Biden said.
"So we're going to be, in that sense, blunter with the Chinese about 'you're in the deal, you play by the rules,'" Biden said. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Sandra Maler)