US President George Bush is to go to the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics because skipping it would be an "affront" to the Chinese people, CNN reported Sunday.

The statement was made at a joint press conference with Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who declared he will also visit China for the beginning of the games.

Bush warned that China must improve its record on human rights and religious freedom but emphasized he did not need to use the Olympics to express his concerns on those issues.

Some world leaders are boycotting that event to protest the communist nation's human rights record.

The U.S. and Japanese leaders met on the eve of this year's Group of Eight meeting of industrialized nations.

At the summit, presidents and prime ministers hope for a deal that would set targets for reducing the pollution that causes global warming.

Bush insists on holding China and India, fast-growing economies and among the world's biggest polluters, to the same emission-reduction standards as older, developed economies.

The US president said that he hopes to get both countries to agree to a long-term goal to cut emissions. But he scaled back expectation about what the summit could achieve or what could result from meetings on the sidelines with leaders of large gas-emitting nations.