SHANGHAI – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 25 called on China to provide a level playing field for American businesses as he began a visit aimed at resolving a raft of contentious issues that could jeopardise the newly repaired relationship.

Mr Blinken’s visit is the latest high-level contact between the two nations that, along with working groups on issues from global trade to military communication, has tempered the public acrimony that drove relations to historic lows in early 2023.

But Washington and Beijing have made little headway on curbing China’s supply of chemicals used to make fentanyl, the South China Sea remains a flashpoint, and strains are growing over China’s backing of Russia in its war in Ukraine.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that at a meeting with China’s top official in Shanghai, Mr Chen Jining, Mr Blinken raised concerns about China’s “trade policies and non-market economic practices”.

Mr Blinken also “stressed that the United States seeks a healthy economic competition with the PRC and a level playing field for US workers and firms operating in China”. The PRC, or People’s Republic of China, is the country’s official name.

Responding to the US official’s comments later in the day, the spokesman for Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Wang Wenbin, told a regular media conference that “China has always been carrying out economic and trade cooperation in accordance with the principles of the market”.

“We hope that the US side will respect the principle of fair competition, abide by WTO rules and work with China to create favourable conditions for the sound and steady development of China-US economic and trade relations,” he said.

While in Shanghai, Mr Blinken also spoke with American and Chinese students at New York University’s local campus, where he said intercultural interactions were “the best way to make sure that we start by hopefully understanding one another”.

Mr Blinken, in a short video statement posted to X with the Shanghai skyline in the background late on April 24, said that curbing the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl to the US from China was one of several issues he was in China to work on.

Mr Blinken will have talks in Beijing on April 26 with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and possibly President Xi Jinping. Those meetings could be fraught.

Mr Blinken also attended a basketball game and dined at a steamed bun restaurant on the night of April 24 with US Ambassador Nicholas Burns, underscoring the importance to the US of rebuilding personal connections with the Chinese people.

“Face to face diplomacy matters,” Mr Blinken said in the short clip posted to X. “It is important for avoiding miscommunications and misperceptions, and to advance the interests of the American people.”

Just as Mr Blinken landed in Shanghai, President Joe Biden signed a rare bipartisan Bill that included US$8 billion (S$10.9 billion) to counter China’s military might, as well as billions in defence aid for Taiwan and US$61 billion in aid to Ukraine.

Mr Biden also signed a separate Bill tied to the aid legislation that bans TikTok in the US if its owner, the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, fails to divest the popular short video app over the next nine months to a year.

Mr Blinken will press China to stop its firms from retooling and resupplying Russia’s defence industrial base.

Moscow invaded Ukraine days after agreeing to a “no limits” partnership with Beijing, and while China has steered clear of providing arms, US officials warn that Chinese companies are sending dual-use technology that helps Russia’s war effort.

Without providing details, a senior State Department official told reporters that Washington was prepared to take steps against Chinese firms it believes are damaging US and European security.

State-run China Daily said in an editorial that there was “a huge question mark over what the discussions between Blinken and his hosts can yield”, and that both sides “have been largely talking past each other”.

“On the conflict in Ukraine, the world can see it clearly that the Ukraine issue is not an issue between China and the US, and the US side should not turn it into one,” it said.

Other state media also highlighted the tensions over the differences.

“Plenty of animosity remains, primarily fuelled by Washington’s adherence to a zero-sum mindset and framing China as a threat,” a commentary carried by Xinhua news agency said.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry official quoted by Xinhua earlier this week said relations “have shown a trend of stopping decline and stabilising” since Mr Biden and Mr Xi met in San Francisco in November.

However, the official criticised what he called Washington’s “stubborn strategy of containing China, and its erroneous words and deeds of interfering in China’s internal affairs, tarnishing China’s image and undermining China’s interests”. REUTERS