US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his delegation met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday, agency pool video showed.
Wang greeted Schumer and his delegation at Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse before going into a meeting.
In opening remarks, the Chinese foreign minister said he hoped the visit would "help the United States to more accurately understand China".
He also said he hoped the trip would help the two sides "manage existing differences more rationally, helping the relationship between the two countries return to the track of healthy development".
Schumer, in turn, thanked Wang for "welcoming us".
"To demonstrate our willingness to undertake frank but productive communication, I am leading this bipartisan delegation," he said.
"We very much appreciate the time you're taking to meet with us," he added.
But he also told the top Chinese diplomat he was "very disappointed" by a Sunday statement from Beijing's foreign ministry on the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
"The foreign ministry's statement... showed no sympathy or support for Israel during these tough, troubled times," Schumer said.
Beijing called Sunday for all sides to show "calm" and "cease fire immediately".
But it did not explicitly condemn a Palestinian attacks that have left hundreds in Israel dead, instead urging the establishment of a two-state solution to end the violence.
Schumer is the latest high-level American official to visit China as Washington seeks to ease tensions with Beijing.
He met Saturday with Chen Jining, the ruling Chinese Communist Party's chief official in Shanghai, according to a pool report, stressing the United States "does not want to decouple our economies".
He also raised the issue of Chinese firms' role in the fentanyl drug addiction crisis in the United States.
"This is not the government but this is Chinese companies," he stressed.
"They are fuelling the fentanyl crisis that is poisoning communities across the United States."
Bloomberg has reported his delegation is seeking a meeting with President Xi Jinping.
bur-oho/je/mca
