Rubio lays crucial groundwork during short-notice meeting with counterpart Wang Yi

Manila, Philippines - Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a delegation of officials from Beijing on the sidelines of this week's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Rubio and Wang discussed a planned trip to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September and set the groundwork for areas of cooperation that can lead to a "very positive visit" with President Donald Trump.

"The work we need to do now ​in September is to identify what those areas are, so that we can lay the ⁠groundwork for a very positive visit," Reuters cites Rubio as telling reporters after the meeting on Wednesday. "We talked a lot about that."

"There are areas of great ​differences. Both sides will acknowledge that. We'll have to work through those, and I think these differences will exist for ​the foreseeable future," he said.

"We're obviously always going to defend our national interest, and I expect they'll do the same as they define it, but I think there are some areas of potential cooperation."

Wang has not addressed or commented on his meeting with Rubio, nor have spokespeople for Beijing's Foreign Ministry, but reporters were briefly allowed into the room to photograph the two delegations.

Rubio indicated a willingness to speak with Wang when he jetted off to the ASEAN summit earlier this week. He will potentially also be meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The summit , as well as Wang and Rubio's brief interaction, came as the US slammed Beijing over "dangerous" and aggressive actions taken against Filipino sailors in the South China Sea on Monday.

It also comes as China and Russia conduct joint military live-fire drills in Japan's economic waters , triggering outrage from Tokyo and further condemnations from US allies.