"China will continue to unswervingly promote a high level of opening up to the outside world and is committed to creating a better market-oriented, rule of law and internationalized business environment for enterprises from all countries, including Tesla," Qin said, according to a ministry statement.
He added that "Chinese-style modernization," characterized by a huge population and "common prosperity" will create "unprecedented growth potential and market demand."
Qin, who until December was China's ambassador in Washington, spoke directly to the growing antagonism between the US and China as Washington continues to pursue what it calls "great power competition" with Russia and China. The foreign minister adopted the apt analogy of a car on the road for US-China relations.
"We need to keep the steering wheel in the right direction of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation," Qin Gang told Musk, adding that "we must also put the brakes on in time to avoid dangerous driving maneuvers."
Musk told Qin he opposed the US policy of "decoupling" from the Chinese economy through a legion of tariffs, blacklists, and other barriers to open trade. Earlier this month, Musk also compared China and the global economy to "conjoined twins," warning that attempting to separate them could be catastrophic for both.
China is the world's largest market for EVs, with nearly 6 million being sold in 2022 - almost double the previous year. Beijing has set ambitious goals for converting the majority of cars on the road from petroleum-powered to electric-powered or fuel cell-powered by 2035 alongside a wider push to convert heating and cooking in millions of homes from petroleum to electric, all in an attempt to mitigate the pollution causing climate change.
As a consequence, China's EV market is white-hot, with Tesla being just one company among several vying to be the choice of Chinese buyer.
Last week, Musk got praise from Beijing and aroused fury in Taipei for saying there was a "certain inevitability" to Taiwan's reunification with mainland China. The island has been autonomous since the end of the civil war in 1949 ( when the People's Republic of China was established in Beijing) with the US funneling them weapons and aid sufficient to safeguard their autonomy. However, Beijing has laid out a plan for its eventual reintegration into the PRC under a "One Country, Two Systems" arrangement.
"The official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated," Musk told US media in a May 16 interview. "One does not need to read between the lines. One can simply read the lines. There’s a certain inevitability to the situation."
Last October, Musk also laid out a peace plan for the Taiwan Strait, saying China should give Taiwan a "special administrative zone" that is "more lenient" than that given to Hong Kong when it was reintegrated into the PRC in 1997 after over a century of being a British colony. He conceded that it "probably won't make everyone happy."
Their meeting comes amid another attempt to sort out some economic disputes between the two superpowers: Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao traveled to the US last week to meet with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the latter of whom is of Chinese descent.