The USTR’s office said that Tai had discussed the guiding principles of the Biden administration’s worker-centric trade policy and her ongoing review of the US-China trade relationship, while also raising “issues of concern”.

In an interview with Reuters released after the official statements, Tai added that the US still faces “very large challenges” in its trade and economic relationship with China that require the Biden administration’s close attention across the board.

Taoran Notes gave a glowing account of how the two countries’ statements came out less than an hour apart, saying this was “basically the same, which also reflected the equality and mutual respect mentioned in the press release”.

The account added that the Chinese statement’s use of phrases such as “candid, pragmatic and constructive exchanges” and “exchange of views”, was “quite meaningful”.

Wang Huiyao, director of the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation, was among the analysts who took a positive view of the talks.

“It was very timely for China and the US to hold such a meeting of high-level representatives, against the backdrop of the global fight against the pandemic and the urgent need for economic recovery,” he said.

China is making progress but is still behind in meeting its commitments to purchase US goods under the phase-one agreement, according to the latest data. As of the end of April, China had reached only 73 per cent of its year-to-date targets for purchases of all covered products outlined in the deal, according to the latest analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).

Chinese imports of US agricultural products had reached 87 per cent of their year-to-date targets by the end of last month, while purchases of manufactured products reached 71 per cent, the PIIE report added.

“The global economy is recovering strongly this year, vaccinations are making progress, so it’s time to restart the [US-China trade] talks after putting them aside for so long,” said Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the Economic Policy Commission under the China Association of Policy Science.

“[The two countries] should make the pie of economic and trade cooperation bigger, increase tolerance in ideological respects, and cool down tensions in the security sphere by avoiding military provocation. We need to do more things that are good for both parties.”

“The US tariffs actually have had no effect, as the US trade deficit with China has actually risen,” Xu said. “It is US companies and consumers who are bearing the burden of the tariffs.”

Zhou Hao, an economist at Commerzbank in Singapore, is among those taking more of a sceptical wait-and-see approach to US-China trade.

“I don’t expect the two sides to make any great progress on the trade issue,” he said. “What everyone may be paying close attention to by the end of the year is whether there will be a phase-two trade agreement. This will be complicated … the odds of reaching a deal are likely to be very low.”

The phase-one deal is due to expire in February, and the latest talks did not shed any light on the outlook for a new agreement.

Zhou expects that the US will keep asking China to fully implement the deal, and that Beijing will try to find various reasons to avoid doing so.

“The importance of the trade issue is declining [in bilateral relations],” he added.

Later on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said that “the phase-one trade deal is good for China, the US and the world”, and that “both sides should work together to create the atmosphere and conditions to promote the implementation of the agreement”.