Beijing has played down tensions with the US after the American administration slammed China on a range of business issues before President Xi Jinping's first meeting with President Donald Trump.
Trump set the tone for what could be a tense meeting at his Mar-a-Lago retreat next week by tweeting on Thursday the US could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses.
Trump said his first face-to-face meeting with Xi, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China's strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, "will be a very difficult one".
Before the meeting, Trump will sign executive orders on Friday aimed at identifying abuses that are causing massive US trade deficits and clamping down on non-payment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports.
Seeking to downplay the rift, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang repeated a desire for co-operation on trade.
"With regard to the problems existing between China and the United States in trade relations, both sides should in a mutual respectful and mutual beneficial way find appropriate resolutions, and ensure the stable development of Sino-US trade relations," he told a daily news briefing.
Speaking earlier at a briefing on the Xi-Trump meeting, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang acknowledged the trade imbalance but said it was mostly due to differences in their two economic structures and noted that China had a trade deficit in services.
"China does not deliberately seek a trade surplus. We also have no intention of carrying out competitive currency devaluation to stimulate exports. This is not our policy," Zheng said.
