US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the People’s Republic of China (PRC) poses a challenge to the United States national interests in the coming years but despite “the emergence of clearly adversarial aspects,” there are also “cooperative aspects” in the bilateral relationship such as fighting climate change and promoting global health.

The top U.S. diplomat also renewed the US commitment to the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait amid a changing Chinese approach to Taiwan.

PRC has deemed the status quo as “no longer acceptable” and is seeking to bring the self-ruled democracy under Beijing’s control “on a much faster timeline” and possibly by force, said Blinken.

Blinken’s remarks come as China’s Communist Party Congress is poised to hand a third five-year term to CCP’s General Secretary Xi Jinping this month.

“The competitive aspect (of the U.S.-China relationship) is front and center,” Voicer of America quoted Blinken as saying during a discussion on Monday with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Stanford, California.

“We’ve seen a very different China emerge in recent years under Xi Jinping’s leadership. It is more repressive at home. It’s more aggressive abroad, and in many instances, that poses a challenge to our own interests, as well as to our own values,” said Blinken. The White House national security strategy identifies China as a fierce competitor to the United States.

But Blinken added some of the “big problems” such as climate and global health are “a lot harder to solve” if the US and China “are not actually engaged in” cooperation.