US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping began in Beijing on Monday, June 19.
This was reported by China Xinhua News and Bloomberg.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping said Beijing and Washington had made progress and reached agreements on some issues during Blinken's visit, "which is very good."
He told Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that he hoped the US diplomat's visit to China would stabilize ties between the world's two largest economies.
Xi also said that interaction between countries should be based on mutual respect.
Blinken's visit to China
Note that Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office, and the first secretary of state to make the trip in five years.
His visit is expected to be the start of a new round of visits by senior US and Chinese officials, possibly including a meeting between Xi and Biden in the coming months.
Blinken began his two-day visit to Beijing on June 18. The mass media reported that neither side expects a breakthrough in relations, because the countries differ on a number of issues. However, the parties are increasingly expressing an interest in achieving greater stability.
The US Secretary of State has already met with China's first diplomat, Wang Yi, and China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang. The parties said they agreed to continue high-level discussions. However, there were no signs that any of the most contentious issues between the two were close to being resolved.
Both sides said Qin had accepted Blinken's invitation to visit Washington, but Beijing made it clear that "China-US relations are at their lowest point since they were established."
In addition, US-China relations fell to their lowest point in a decade in February after a Chinese spy balloon flew over US airspace, forcing Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing. Since then, the Biden administration has been working to restore ties with China to reduce the risk of conflict between the two nuclear powers over a misunderstanding.
