May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. government is doing the

right thing by fully engaging with China, JPMorgan Chase ( JPM )

CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday,

adding that Beijing was a fierce competitor, but "not an enemy"

of the Western world.

His comments came a day after President Joe Biden unveiled

steep tariff increases on an array of Chinese imports, including

electric vehicle batteries, computer chips and medical products.

China vowed retaliation, with its commerce ministry saying

that Beijing was opposed to the tariff hikes and would take

steps to defend its interests.

Dimon, the head of the biggest U.S. bank, said the Western

world "had a good hand" in dealing with competition from

Beijing, but tensions over the future of Taiwan would complicate

relations.

A trade tiff could also potentially undo the efforts by

Biden in recent months to ease tensions between the world's two

largest economies through one-on-one talks with Chinese

President Xi Jinping.

Dimon also warned about the growing alliance between Russia

and China. "As long as China is kind of on the side of Russia,

we're going to have a hard time," he said, ahead of Russian

President Vladimir Putin's visit to China this week.

In an

interview

to China's Xinhua news agency published on Wednesday, Putin

said he backed China's plan for a peaceful settlement of the

Ukraine crisis, saying Beijing had a full understanding of what

lay behind the crisis.

Dimon also said he had met UK Labour leader Keir Starmer for

the first time, and said both him and the British Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak were "pro business."

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun

Koyyur)