Vice Premier He Lifeng will lead a delegation to Malaysia from Friday to Monday to hold economic and trade consultations with the US side, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday.

The two countries will hold consultations on important issues in bilateral economic and trade relations in accordance with the important consensus reached by their heads of state during their phone calls this year, the ministry said in a statement.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will lead the US side in the talks, to be held on the sidelines of an Asean summit.

The talks come as tension roiled Sino-US trade relations since Beijing expanded curbs on rare earth exports this month in response to a US hike in the number of firms barred from purchasing American technology, amid a dispute triggered by US tariffs.

Until then, ties had appeared to be thawing following a telephone call on September 19 between President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Donald Trump.

That had been preceded by a Madrid summit between He and Bessent which was widely viewed as a success for a breakthrough deal on social media app TikTok.

But officials of the two nations are now scrambling to salvage a planned summit of their leaders in South Korea, which is just a week away, while trading blame for the spike in tension.

That saw Trump threaten to cancel a meeting that he said he would hold with Xi in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

But the US president has also made it clear he hopes to seal a "good" deal with China and end the trade war.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry, weighing in on Trump's imposition of sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, said China opposes unilateral sanctions. (Xinhua and agencies)