CHINESE Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met his counterpart from the United States in Beijing today.

He and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo both expressed a desire to improve trade conditions between the two nations but there was no news of any concrete proposals.

Ms Raimondo joined the steady line of US officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July, who have made the trip to China in the past three months. 

The two sides have expressed optimism about improving communication but have announced no progress on a range of disputes that have plunged relations to their lowest level in decades.

Mr Wang told Ms Raimondo that Beijing was ready to work with the US to “foster a more favourable policy environment for stronger co-operation” and bolster bilateral trade and investment. 

Ms Raimondo said the two sides are working on establishing “new information exchanges” for “more consistent engagement.”

She said: "It is profoundly important that we have a stable economic relationship. I believe that we can make progress if we are direct, open and practical.”

The visits are taking place under an agreement made by Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden during a meeting last November in Indonesia.

Last week, on the day Ms Raimondo's visit to Beijing was announced, Washington removed 27 Chinese firms from a blacklist that limits access to US technology.

A key Chinese complaint is about the limits imposed by the US on access to processor chips and other technology that threaten to hamper China’s development of artificial intelligence and other industries — measures that have hit companies like Huawei, one of China’s major global technology brands, hard.

Washington also strong-armed the Netherlands and Japan to join it in blocking Chinese access to tools for manufacturing advanced chips.

“In matters of national security, there is no room to compromise,” but most US-Chinese trade does not involve national security concerns, Ms Raimondo told Mr Wang. 

She said: “I’m committed to promoting trade and investment in those areas that are in our mutual best interest.”

Ms Raimondo defended the Biden administration’s “de-risking” strategy of trying to increase domestic US production of semiconductors and other high-tech goods and to create extra sources of supply to reduce chances of disruption. 

Beijing has criticised US policy as an attempt to isolate China and hamper its economic development and the continued interference of the US in the domestic affairs of the country through relations with the breakaway province of Taiwan.