China is making “attempts to influence and arguably interfere” in the 2024 elections in the United States, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a diplomatic tour to the communist country.

“We have seen, generally speaking, evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere, and we want to make sure that that’s cut off as quickly as possible,” Blinken told CNN during a stop in Beijing. “Any interference by China in our election is something that we’re looking very carefully at and is totally unacceptable to us, so I wanted to make sure that they heard that message again.”

That protest was just one factor in a range of fraught issues as Blinken met with his counterpart and Chinese President Xi Jinping amid disputes over China’s enabling of Russia’s war in Ukraine and U.S. support for the Philippines against Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea. Yet Chinese officials adopted a remonstrative tone, maintaining that the U.S. has “unreasonably suppressed” China’s rise.

“This is a fundamental issue that must be addressed, just like the first button of a shirt that must be put right, in order for the China-U.S. relationship to truly stabilize, improve, and move forward,” Xi told Blinken.