US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on Monday in New York, justifying the need for “responsible” management of strained relations with Beijing, AFP reports.

“I think it’s good that there are more high-level meetings between the US and China,” he said at the start of a meeting with a Chinese official at China’s UN mission in New York.

The purpose of the talks was to “make sure that we keep the lines of communication open and that we demonstrate that we are responsibly managing the relationship between our two countries,” he said.

Washington and Beijing have redoubled efforts to calm turbulent relations.

Monday’s meeting on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly followed a meeting over the weekend in Malta between Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

“The parties had a frank, meaningful and constructive discussion,” the White House said in a statement over the weekend.

A senior US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the meeting lasted a total of twelve hours over two days and recalled that the last meeting of this type and at this level took place last May.

Around the same time in the spring, the US president predicted a “thaw” in Sino-US relations, which worsened in February after a Chinese hot air balloon flew over the US.

According to a White House source, China and the US are “committed to consulting” in several areas, including “political and security developments in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The United States and China have resumed dialogue in recent months with a series of visits to Beijing by senior US officials, including Anthony Blinken.

The dialogue could foreshadow a possible one-on-one between Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the next APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in mid-November in San Francisco, California, but neither Washington nor Beijing have confirmed this. . at this stage.

Bilateral relations remain strained, with trade disputes, China’s expansion in the South China Sea and the issue of the autonomous, democratic island of Taiwan still major stumbling blocks.