This file photo shows the national flags of China (right) and the United States on Constitution Avenue in Washington, the capital of the United States. (PHOTO/XINHUA)

BEIJING - China's top diplomats will hold a high-level strategic dialogue with their US counterparts in Alaska on March 18 and 19 at the invitation of the US side, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian confirmed Thursday.

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will attend the meeting scheduled to be held in Anchorage.

China's position on China-US relations is clear, Zhao said in response to a relevant question.

China urges the US side to view China and China-US relations in an objective and rational way, abandon the Cold War and zero-sum mentality, respect China's sovereignty, security and development interests, stop interfering in China's internal affairs, focus on cooperation and manage differences in accordance with the spirit of the conversation between the two heads of state, and bring China-US relations back on the right track of sound and stable development, he said.

This will be the first high-level diplomatic meeting to be held a month after top leaders of the two countries talked by phone.

This will be the first high-level diplomatic meeting to be held a month after top leaders of the two countries talked by phone

The White House said Wednesday that the two sides will discuss "a range of issues" with China.

Blinken said on Wednesday that he would stop off in Alaska from a trip to Tokyo and Seoul. He would join Sullivan to meet the Chinese diplomats.

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The announcement of the meeting came exactly a month after what US media reports called "an unusually long, two-hour call" between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

During that phone call, Xi said that the foreign affairs departments of the two countries may have in-depth communications on wide-ranging matters in the bilateral relationship and major international and regional issues.

Blinken, who talked with Yang on Feb 6 by phone, said Wednesday that the meeting would be "an important opportunity for us to lay out in very frank terms the many concerns" with Beijing.

"We'll also explore whether there are avenues for cooperation. And we'll talk about the competition that we have with China to make sure that the United States has a level playing field, and that our companies and workers benefit from that," Blinken said in his first appearance before Congress since being confirmed as America's top diplomat.

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The timing of the meeting "at a mutually convenient but US territory-based site" shows the "seriousness about substance with China", according to Douglas H. Paal, senior researcher of the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"There might be a small substantive surprise," Paal said, adding that the basic result could be a mutual airing of concerns and red lines.

The White House said Wednesday that the two sides will discuss "a range of issues" with China

China-US relations plunged to the lowest point during the previous administration since the two countries forged diplomatic relations in 1979.

With the onset of the Biden administration, expectations have been running high among diplomatic, business and academic communities for a reset of the world's "most consequential bilateral relationship".

Foreign Minister Wang said last week that China is ready to work with the US to follow through on the outcomes of the first presidential phone call and set China-US relations on a new path of "healthy and steady growth".

"We hope that the US will move in the same direction and remove all of its unreasonable restrictions on bilateral cooperation as early as possible and stop creating new obstacles," Wang said at a news conference Sunday in Beijing on the sidelines of the annual national legislative session.

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On Tuesday, a survey released by the American Chamber of Commerce shows that US businesses in China are profoundly positive about doing business in 2021 and expect ties between Beijing and Washington to improve.

The survey found 81 percent of the 345 respondents see their industries in China growing in 2021, while 45 percent see relations with the United States improving, up by 15 percentage points from last year.

Last week, Chinese medical experts and their American colleagues held a virtual forum where they all underscored the need for the two countries to cooperate in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

John Allen, president of the Brookings Institution, said at the forum that the two countries have a long history of "constructive and productive collaboration" to combat diseases from SARS in 2003 to Ebola in 2015, and they need to join forces again for the world to emerge stronger from the pandemic.

With Xinhua inputs