Chinese President's threat to Joe Biden on the issue of Taiwan: "Those who play with fire will burn."
US and Chinese leaders warned each other during a two-hour call on the issue of Taiwan.
President Joe Biden told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that the United States strongly opposes any unilateral move to change the island's status.
He added that US policy towards Taiwan has not changed.
Beijing says President Xi asked the US president to adhere to the "One China Policy" and warned him that "those who play with fire will get burned."
Tensions have risen over the issue ahead of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rumored visit to Taiwan.
The State Department says Pelosi has not announced a visit, but China has warned there would be "serious consequences" if she goes ahead with the visit. termed the proliferation as 'manifestly unnecessary and of no benefit to anyone'.
Nancy Pelosi, who is running for the presidency after the vice president, will be the highest-ranking US politician to visit Taiwan since 1997.
During Thursday's phone call, President Biden and President Xi also discussed a possible face-to-face meeting, a senior Biden administration official said.
When Biden was the vice president of the United States, in 2015, he hosted Chinese leader Xi during his visit to the United States, but the two leaders did not meet during Biden's presidency.
China views Taiwan as a breakaway province that it wants to make part of its country at all costs and has not ruled out the possibility of using force to achieve this goal.
Under the One China Policy, Washington does not recognize Taipei diplomatically, but the US sells weapons to the democratically independent island to defend itself.
The White House says that in addition to Taiwan, the two leaders discussed other issues, including climate change and health security.
The Biden administration is considering whether to end Trump-era tariffs on Chinese imports. They argue that such a move could increase inflation in the US, but according to a senior US official, the US president did not discuss the matter with Xi on Thursday.
Analysts believe both Joe Biden and Xi Jinping want to avoid a conflict, but neither has made any plans to change their competing narratives. Didn't try and his conflicting statements after Thursday's call made that clear once again.
After a long period of time, Beijing has said many of its interests overlap, but it has blamed the US for deteriorating ties and criticized the Biden administration for treating China as a 'primary rival'. Targeted.