China, US must ‘find ways to get along’

President Xi Jinping said China and the United States must "find ways to get along" to safeguard world peace and development, state media reported yesterday, as he embarks on his precedent-breaking third term in power.

China and the United States have butted heads in recent years on issues ranging from Beijing's aggression towards self-governing Taiwan to its crackdown in Hong Kong and alleged rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Washington has also accused Beijing of providing diplomatic cover for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reports AFP.

Xi sealed another five years as China's leader at the end of a twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress on Sunday.

"The world today is neither peaceful nor tranquil," Xi wrote in a congratulatory letter to the National Committee on US-China Relations -- some of his first remarks since the Congress -- according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

"As major powers, strengthening communication and cooperation between China and the US will help to increase global stability and certainty, and promote world peace and development," he reportedly told the New York-based non-profit organisation.

Xi added that China was "willing to work with the US to give mutual respect, coexist peacefully... (and) find ways to get along in the new era", the broadcaster reported.

Doing so "will not only be good for both countries, but also benefit the world", Xi wrote.

The Biden administration said this month that China is the only competitor to the United States "with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective".

During a meeting with his defence officials on Wednesday, Biden said the US does not seek conflict with China and President Xi was aware of that fact, according to the Associated Press.

Biden said that he had spent more time speaking to Xi than other world leaders dating back to when he was vice president and that the US would "responsibly manage increasingly intense competition with China" and in the Indo-Pacific region also "build new coalitions committed to a world that is free".

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that China has rejected the longstanding status quo on Taiwan, reiterating an assessment that Beijing is speeding up its timeline to take the island.

Blinken said that the four-decade status quo -- in which the United States recognizes only Beijing but offers the island weapons for its own defense -- has "helped to make sure there wouldn't be a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan."

"What's changed is this -- a decision by the government in Beijing that that status quo was no longer acceptable, that they wanted to speed up the process by which they would pursue reunification," Blinken told an event at Bloomberg News.