China Urges US to Handle Taiwan Issue “With Utmost Caution” as Tensions Escalate
China’s top diplomat warned Washington to handle Taiwan matters with “the utmost caution” during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the latest escalation in a diplomatic standoff that has put the Asia-Pacific’s most volatile flashpoint back at the center of great-power competition and raised alarm across the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula alike.
Wang Yi and Rubio Speak for the Second Time in Six Weeks
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered the warning during a Tuesday call with Rubio, describing Taiwan as the “most important and most sensitive issue” in U.S.-China relations. “A slight move on the Taiwan issue could affect the whole situation,” Wang said, according to an official Chinese summary of the conversation released by Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and no joint statement was issued following the call.
The conversation was the second direct exchange between the two senior diplomats in six weeks, following a brief bilateral meeting on the margins of a G20 foreign ministers gathering in Johannesburg in February. Neither side has disclosed the full agenda of Tuesday’s call, though Chinese state media described it as initiated by the Chinese side.
Trump-Xi Summit in May Did Not Settle the Question
The call follows a May summit in Beijing between President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, where Xi warned that mishandling disagreements over Taiwan could push bilateral relations into an “extremely dangerous place.” Despite the summit’s diplomatic optics — a working dinner at the Great Hall of the People with plaques of smiling officials behind them — neither side has moved to reopen the formal diplomatic channels that lapsed under the previous administration, and both have publicly maintained positions that leave little room for compromise.
Taiwan’s own government has watched the exchange with barely concealed anxiety. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council issued a brief statement urging “all parties to exercise restraint and adhere to the principles of peace and stability,” language that has become reflexive in Taipei’s responses to U.S.-China diplomatic movements. The island’s defense ministry has been publishing daily updates on PLA air activity since the Rubio-Wang call, a practice it began in late 2024 and has maintained without interruption.
Military Activity Around Taiwan Picks Up
In the two weeks since the Rubio-Wang call, the Taiwan Strait has seen a marked increase in Chinese military air activity, according to data from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. PLA aircraft have conducted 14 incursion operations into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone — the highest two-week rate since early 2025. The incursions have included Sukhoi Su-30 fighters and J-16 multirole aircraft operating near the median line, a tacit boundary that Beijing officially refuses to recognize but had largely respected since 2022.
The U.S. Seventh Fleet confirmed that a carrier strike group was conducting routine operations in the Philippine Sea but declined to specify whether any vessel had transited the Strait. Two U.S. Navy destroyers transited the Taiwan Strait in late June, according to a Seventh Fleet statement, in an operation described as routine but publicly announced — a signal, analysts say, that the U.S. is deliberately telegraphing its presence.
Regional allies are watching closely. Japan’s Defense Ministry said it was monitoring the situation and coordinating with the U.S. through the full range of bilateral security mechanisms. Australia’s foreign minister issued a statement calling for “dialogue, not confrontation” across the Taiwan Strait. The Philippines, whose own territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea have sharpened since the BRP Teresa Maglavena incident in April, called the U.S.-China dynamic “a matter of direct concern” for Southeast Asian nations.
“Strategic ambiguity is no longer ambiguous enough to prevent miscalculation,” said one regional defense analyst in Singapore, who asked not to be named given the sensitivity of their government ties. “Both sides believe they have more leverage than the other, and that is precisely the condition in which accidents become wars.”
