Joe Biden praises Xi Jinping's ability to manage disputes

US vice-president's visit was intended to focus on economic issues but has been overtaken by row over China's air defence zone

Joe Biden and the US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, meet visa applicants at the US embassy in Beijing. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images

Joe Biden praised the Chinese president's commitment to managing differences candidly as he arrived in Beijing on Wednesday on a trip defined by regional disputes.

The US vice-president's week-long visit to Japan, China and South Korea was originally intended to focus on economic issues but has been overtaken by the row over China's new air defence zone.

Biden said the US and China needed to expand practical co-operation and deliver results – and made his remarks about Xi Jinping's handling of disagreements – as he met vice-president Li Yuanchao in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, before dinner with Xi himself. He is expected to press Chinese leaders to avoid "destabilising actions".

He will meet the premier, Li Keqiang, on Thursday, before flying to Seoul.

Earlier, Biden encouraged young Chinese citizens to challenge authority. Visiting the visa section of the US embassy with the ambassador, Gary Locke, he thanked those waiting for wanting to visit the US and added pointedly that he hoped they would see "innovation can only occur where you can breathe free".

He added: "Children in America are rewarded not punished for challenging the status quo ... The only way you make something totally new is to break the mould of what was old."

Speaking one day after global education rankings by the OECD showed Shanghai taking the top position in maths, reading and science, with Americans lagging behind many of their Asian and European peers, he added: "Even though some countries' educational systems are better than America's, particularly in grade school, there is one thing that's stamped in the DNA of every American, whether they are naturalised citizens or natural-born.