BEIJING — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao sharply defended China’s currency and trade policies on Sunday against what he called foreign “finger pointing,” charging instead that developed countries seek to force unfair changes in those policies “just for the purposes of increasing their own exports.”

Mr. Wen’s remarks, which echoed a rebuke on Thursday by one of China’s central bankers, were perhaps the sharpest yet in a brewing disagreement between the Chinese and American governments over their economic positions.

In a news conference that lasted more than two hours at the close of China’s annual legislative session, Mr. Wen repeated that China would keep its currency, the renminbi, “basically stable” despite calls by the United States and other developed nations to let its value increase.

He also repeated the concerns he voiced a year ago, at China’s past legislative session, that the United States was failing to rebuild its own economy and maintain the value of the dollar, which has fluctuated since the global economic crisis began in late 2008. Protecting the dollar is a matter of “national credibility,” Mr. Wen said.