The Biden administration’s policy toward China calls for diplomatic and economic competition but will not seek to replace an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party system, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.

“We are not looking for conflict or a new cold war,” Mr. Blinken said in a long-anticipated speech in Washington detailing the administration’s strategy for dealing with Beijing’s growing influence and increasingly aggressive posture on the world stage.

President Biden has kept in place some elements of the Trump administration’s China policy, which recognized for the first time in decades that Beijing is working to undermine the U.S.-led democratic and free market systems.

However, the approach Mr. Blinken outlined Thursday was notably less confrontational than that pursued by President Trump, and some critics said the secretary of state’s overall prescription for countering China’s efforts to achieve global supremacy was impractical.