Rubio says US and Chinese leaders to meet in April

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the expected meeting between the US and Chinese leaders will take place in April this year when US President Donald Trump is expected to visit China to meet with President Xi Jinping.

"The two largest economies in the world, two of the big powers on the planet, we have an obligation to communicate with them and talk. Because we are two large countries with huge global interests, our national interests will often not align. Their national interests and ours will not align, and we owe it to the world to try to manage those as best we can obviously avoiding conflict both economic and worse," Rubio said.

Rubio went on to say there are some fundamental challenges between the US and China and between the West and China, adding the challenges will continue for the foreseeable future and the US and China must do everything possible to avoid unnecessary friction.

In Beijing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously stated that head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-US relations.

It was also pointed out that the essence of China-US economic and trade relations is mutual benefit and win-win and both sides should implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state to inject more certainty and stability into China-US economic and trade cooperation and the world economy.