’China has always viewed and managed China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation’ BEIJInG: China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday that relations between the two countries were facing “new difficulties and challenges,” Beijing said. “Since the beginning of the year, Sino-American relations have faced new difficulties and challenges,” Qin said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry readout of a phone call between the two top diplomats. “It’s clear who is responsible,” Qin said. “China has always viewed and managed China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation put forward by President Xi Jinping,” he added. The call between the two diplomats comes ahead of an expected visit by Blinken to China on Sunday. Presidents Joe Biden and Xi met in Bali in November and agreed to try to stop high tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Blinken to Beijing. Blinken then abruptly canceled a trip scheduled in early February after the United States said it detected — and later shot down — a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US mainland, drawing fury from US lawmakers and denials by Beijing. But the two sides have more recently looked again to keep tensions in check including with an extensive, closed-door meeting between Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna last month. Tensions have risen sharply between the world’s two largest economies in recent years, especially over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims and has not ruled out seizing by force.