China's ambassador to the United States said on Saturday that the two countries need to keep working to improve relations amid "unprecedented challenges".

Xie Feng made the comments at Harvard University ahead of a visit to Beijing this week by the top US diplomat, Antony Blinken.

“Whether the younger generation can continue to enjoy the eight-decade-long peace and development as their parents did depends largely on whether China and the United States can find the right way to get along in the new era,” Xie said in comments released by the embassy on Sunday.

Xie said talks in California between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, in November had injected stability into the bilateral relationship and also formed a forward-looking “San Francisco vision”.

“Since the meeting, the two sides have maintained interactions at various levels, and conducted dialogue and cooperation in areas including foreign policy, economy and trade, law enforcement, agriculture, and [military to military] relations,” Xie was quoted by the embassy as saying.

The ambassador acknowledged that there was competition between the two sides and said China would not shy away from such competition as long as it was fair.

He rejected as unfair US claims that China’s lead in areas such as electric vehicles and solar panels was a result of overcapacity, and criticised the US insistence that other countries ban exports of certain products to China.

Blinken arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for three days of talks that are expected to cover the crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as bilateral ties.