US Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the APEC CEO Summit in Bangkok on Friday. AP

Harris spoke to the Chinese leader as they entered a retreat in Bangkok during a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, a White House official said.

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The vice president reinforced Biden's message that "we must maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries", the official said on condition of anonymity.

The meeting came after the United States said it was looking for China to do more to rein in its ally North Korea, which on Friday test-fired a ballistic missile that US and Japanese officials said was capable of hitting the US mainland.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a meeting. File photo

Xi, who is on only his second overseas trip since the pandemic, has been meeting widely with foreign leaders both in Bangkok and earlier in the week at a G20 summit in Bali.

On Monday, Xi met for three hours with Biden at a hotel on the Indonesian resort island, the first in-person talks between the leaders of the world's two largest economies since they both became president.

Both sides put a positive spin on the meeting, saying they hoped to prevent recent tensions from spiralling out of control and wanted to cooperate on areas such as climate change.

Chinese state media on Saturday quoted Xi as saying his meeting with Biden was "strategic and constructive, and has important guiding significance for China-US relations in the next stage".

"It is hoped that the two sides will further enhance mutual understanding, reduce misunderstanding and misjudgment, and jointly promote the return of China-US relations to a healthy and stable track," Xi added, according to the report.

Agence France-Presse