'Negative' factors building in US-China ties, foreign minister Wang tells Blinken

The United States is suppressing China's development, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday during talks with his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken who is on a visit to Beijing aimed at resolving trade and policy differences between the superpowers, Reuters reports.

Secretary of State Blinken is due to spend several hours with Wang in closed-door meetings at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse as well as a working lunch, as the two sides try to maintain progress in ties despite a broad and complex agenda, the report adds.

As the pair settled into their opening session, Wang told Blinken that the "giant ship" of the China-U.S. relationship had stabilised, "but negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and building".

"And the relationship is facing all kinds of disruptions. China's legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed and our core interests are facing challenges," he said.

Blinken replied that "active diplomacy" was needed to move forward with the agenda set by President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping when they met in San Francisco in November.

"There's no substitute in our judgement for face-to-face diplomacy," Blinken said, adding that he wanted to ensure that "we're as clear as possible about the areas where we have differences, at the very least to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid miscalculations".

U.S. State Department officials signalled ahead of the sessions that China's support for Russia would feature strongly. According to Reuters, despite increasing high-level exchanges and working groups tackling issues such as enhanced military communication and global trade, stark differences remain.

Hours before Blinken landed in China on Wednesday, Biden signed a bipartisan bill that included $8 billion to counter China's military might, as well as billions in defence aid for Taiwan and $61 billion for Ukraine.