China and the United States need to proceed together with "good will" to improve relations, the Chinese ambassador to Washington has said as ties remain fraught between the world's two biggest economic powers.
Sino-US relations have fallen to their lowest point in decades over issues from trade and security to human rights and COVID-19.
On Friday, a Chinese state media editorial said ties are being shifted to "a dangerous path".
"In order to put the relations on the right track, to have real improvement of the relations, both sides have to proceed with good will and good faith," Cui Tiankai told the Annual Conference of the Institute for China-America Studies via video link.
"I don't think that China should just do something to please anybody here," he said, according to a transcript posted on his embassy's website.
Tensions between the two countries escalated in July when China closed the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu in retaliation for the closure of its own consulate in Houston, Texas.
Earlier in the year, Washington cut the number of Chinese nationals allowed to work at the US offices of major Chinese state media.
Beijing then expelled US journalists in the China bureaus of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
Cui did not rule out the possibility of China reopening the Chengdu consulate before US President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January.
"I have to say we did not initiate the closing of consulates. We were not the first one to ask foreign journalists to leave the country," Cui said.
"We did all these things in response to actions taken by the United States. So if the US government is ready to reverse the course, we are ready to look at it."
Australian Associated Press
