China’s top diplomat Wang Yi warned his American counterpart that problems are mounting between the world’s largest economies, as the US threatens Beijing with sanctions for its support of Russia.

“The China-US relationship is beginning to stabilise,” Wang said in Beijing on Friday morning, as he sat down for talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “But at the same time, the negative factors in the relationship are still increasing.”

Blinken stressed the importance of dialogue, calling the bilateral relationship the world’s “most-consequential”. “I look forward in these discussions to being very clear, very direct about the areas where we have differences, and where the United States stands,” he said.

The senior White House official is expected to balance criticisms over China’s industrial and foreign policy with requests for help curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme and easing tensions in the Middle East. He’ll also have to explain how America can say it wants better cooperation after President Joe Biden signed a law that could expel TikTok - owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd - from the US.

Blinken arrived in the Chinese capital city after a series of friendlier engagements in Shanghai on Thursday. Those included attending a basketball game, eating dinner at a dumpling restaurant, taking a stroll along the colonial-era riverfront and addressing US and Chinese students at a local New York University campus.

Blinken is also expected to meet President Xi Jinping before addressing the press and departing on Friday evening - as he did on a trip to China last year. Neither side has confirmed such talks.

The top American diplomat’s visit comes against a thorny backdrop, after the Biden administration vowed new tariffs on China and open a probe into its rival’s world-leading ship-building industry. The White House is sending a flurry of officials to Beijing to keep guardrails on the relationship during the hawkish US election season.

During such a trip to Beijing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen earlier this month raised the prospect of fresh sanctions on Chinese financial institutions helping to prop up Russia’s defense industrial base.

“We have an obligation for our people - and indeed, an obligation for the world - to manage the relationship between our two countries responsibly,” Blinken told the Chinese Communist Party’s top official in Shanghai, Chen Jining, on Thursday. He also brought up China’s “non-market” policies and the treatment of US businesses in China. 

With the US election campaign picking up momentum and both Democrats and Republicans vowing to take a tougher approach to Beijing, there is still room for volatility in the US-China relationship. That’s despite a pledge from both sides to keep bilateral ties on a more secure footing following a series of high-profile incidents, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and US Air Force jets shooting down an alleged Chinese spy balloon.

US officials have grown increasingly concerned that Chinese economic support to Russia, including exports of dual-use technologies and components, have helped fuel resurgent Russian forces in Ukraine. 

Although Chinese leaders have heeded US warnings not to send lethal military aid to the Kremlin in the form of weapons or munitions, there is a growing sense that Beijing’s economic and industrial support has helped Russia buck Western sanctions aimed at crippling its defense industry.

There is also dismay in Washington at China’s increased aggression in the South China Sea, particularly around the Second Thomas Shoal, where Chinese vessels have used powerful hoses against ships trying to restock a beached, ageing vessel that serves as a semi-permanent maritime outpost. That led the Biden administration to host the leaders of Japan and the Philippines in Washington recently, pledging to step up security cooperation.
 

  - Bloomberg