China's Wang Yi warns Rubio Taiwan is biggest risk to U.S. ties

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call Thursday that Taiwan is "the biggest point of risk" for U.S.-China relations, according to an official summary released by Wang's ministry.

The call signals the stakes surrounding an expected mid-May summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping in Beijing, the first face-to-face meeting since the two leaders struck a fragile tariff truce in South Korea last October.

Wang told Rubio that "the Taiwan issue concerns China's core interests" and described it as the most dangerous fault line in the bilateral relationship, The Korea Times reported, citing the ministry's official summary of the call.

Wang urged the United States to "keep its promises and make the right choices in order to open up new space for China-U.S. cooperation and make due efforts for world peace," according to the summary.

Despite the sharp warning, Wang offered a broadly stable picture of overall ties. "Under the strategic guidance of President Xi Jinping and President Trump, China-U.S. relations have generally remained stable," Wang said, adding that "both sides should safeguard the hard-won stability, make good preparations for agendas of important high-level interactions, expand cooperation, and manage differences."

The Thursday call was the first publicly known direct exchange between Wang and Rubio since U.S. and Israeli forces began strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. The two diplomats last met in person in Munich in February.

A Trump-Xi summit in Beijing is expected in mid-May. If confirmed, it would be their first face-to-face encounter since a South Korea gathering last October, where the two sides reached a tariff truce that has since held with difficulty.

Taiwan has long been the sharpest flashpoint between Washington and Beijing, with China claiming the self-governing island as its own territory. The mid-May summit will test whether months of diplomatic warming hold as both sides juggle competing pressures from trade, Iran and the broader Indo-Pacific.