Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe urged the United States to stop its "erroneous words and actions" during a phone call to his US counterpart Mark Esper, on the visit of a US official to Taiwan.
The Xinhua News Agency said the minister appealed to Washington to refrain from taking "dangerous" initiatives that could lead to escalation and maintain regional peace and stability, as he put it.
This call is one of the rare direct contacts between senior officials of the two countries in recent months, as there are differences between Washington and Beijing on many issues, including American accusations to China that it has misled the world and hidden information about the spread of the Corona "Covid-19" epidemic that first appeared in China , Huawei and Uyghur Muslims, Tik Tok application as well as the National Security Law of Hong Kong, among others.
During a press conference earlier Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin vowed to take a "firm and strong response" to the visit of US Secretary of Health Alex Azar to Taiwan.
A few days ago, the Azar office announced that the minister would head a delegation that would visit Taiwan, to be the highest-ranking US government official to visit this island for four decades.
In response to the announcement, China accused the United States of "endangering peace", and Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that his country "strongly opposes official exchanges between the United States and Taiwan," adding that Beijing lodged a protest with the Trump administration.
Beijing insists that Taiwan - which has run its affairs with an independent government since 1949 - is part of its territory, and has repeatedly pledged to wrest it by force if necessary.
While relations between Taiwan and the United States have improved significantly under President Donald Trump, relations between Washington and Beijing have deteriorated in recent years.
China is looking to implement a model based on the principle of "one country, two systems" in Taiwan, as is the case in Hong Kong, and this model would allow Taiwan to maintain some freedoms, while subject to the central authority of Beijing.
But since the 1990s, a unique Taiwanese identity has emerged, and many on the island are no longer pursuing any form of unification with China, which has raised Beijing's concern that it stresses that any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan will cross the red line.