China tells Rubio to behave himself in veiled warning

BEIJING — China’s veteran foreign minister has issued a veiled warning to America’s new secretary of state: Behave yourself. Foreign Minister Wang Yi conveyed the message in a phone call Friday, their first conversation since Marco Rubio’s confirmation as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat four days earlier. The short phrase seemed aimed at Rubio’s vocal criticism of China and its human rights record when he was a U.S. senator, which prompted the Chinese government to put sanctions on him twice in 2020. It can be translated in various ways — in the past, the Foreign Ministry has used “make the right choice” and “be very prudent about what they say or do” rather than “act accordingly.” The vagueness allows the phrase to express an expectation and deliver a veiled warning, while also maintaining the courtesy necessary for further diplomatic engagement, said Zichen Wang, a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank. It said Rubio told Wang that the Trump administration would advance U.S. interests in its relationship with China and expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea.” Wang was foreign minister in 2020 when China slapped sanctions on Rubio in July and August, first in response to U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials for a crackdown on the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region and then over what it regarded as outside interference in Hong Kong.