1st call between Marco Rubio and Wang Yi

Neither State Department nor MOFA is gonna like this piece.

Wang Yi and Marco Rubio, the respective top diplomats of China and the U.S., held their first phone call on Friday, January 24, 2025. Below are a few points I want to make.

First, the State Department, now under Rubio, misidentified Wang’s job title in its readout.

Wang holds two jobs concurrently, Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China and Foreign Minister of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). On the first part, the State Department readout erroneously describes him as Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission. The person holding that position is Xi Jinping.

Don’t start making a big fuss about Rubio or even Trump yet. The State Department under Anthony Blinken repeatedly made the same mistake, too, although Blinken’s Twitter at least twice correctly identified Wang as head of the office of the commission rather than the commission.[2023-06-19][2023-07-13]

There is extremely little public information about the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China. The commission held its first meeting on May 15, 2018, according to a readout. Xi was the director of the commission, China’s then premier Li Keqiang was deputy director of the commission, and then vice president of the PRC Wang Qishan was a member of the commision. There were other member(s) of the commision, but they were unidentified. The meeting adopted working rules of the commission but they are publicly unavailable.

I can go on, but the heart of the matter is that Wang Yi is the director of the office of the commission, but not the commission itself. Current deputy directors of the office include Guo Yezhou, formerly the first deputy minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC), and Li Kexin, formerly the Director-General of the Department of International Economic Affairs of the Foreign Ministry. Liu Jianchao, the Minister of IDCPC, was previously a deputy director of the office.

Neil Thomas of the Asia Society Policy Institute also noticed the mistake on Twitter.

Second, I think there is an oversight in the Chinese readout of the phone call. Compared with getting the job title wrong, this flaw is minor, but it’s about Taiwan, and as everyone keeps saying Taiwan is the most dangerous place on earth, here are a few inks spilled for you.

This will be harder to explain, so let’s start with the structure of a Chinese official readout of international interactions. Typically, 85%, 90%, if not more, of the readout is what the top Chinese official in that particular occasion said. But there will be one or two paragraphs where the Chinese readout relays what the other - foreign - side said in the interaction.

Because space is extremely limited, so the Chinese relay of the foreign official’s remarks is not comprehensive, but selective. What part of the foreigner’s remarks would the Chinese select to put it out in the Chinese readout? Certainly, the part of speech that aligns more than contradicts the Chinese official stance. For example, the Chinese readout says Rubio said something like

Rubio said the United States and China are two great countries. The U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the 21st century and will determine the future of the world. The United States hopes to have candid communication with China, resolve differences, manage the bilateral relationship in a mature and prudent manner, and work together to address global challenges and maintain peace and stability in the world. The United States does not support “Taiwan independence” and hopes that the Taiwan question can be resolved peacefully in a manner acceptable to both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

According to the State Department readout

Secretary Rubio emphasized that the Trump Administration will pursue a U.S.-PRC relationship that advances U.S. interests and puts the American people first. The Secretary also stressed the United States’ commitment to our allies in the region and serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The Secretary also discussed other issues of bilateral, regional, and global importance with his Chinese counterpart.

But you won’t find this in the Chinese readout, just as you won’t find what Wang Yi said in the U.S. readout. This is perfectly reasonable - no one is obligated to use their own channels to present the other side’s views.

However, the Chinese readout, unprecedentedly, mentioned that the U.S. Secretary of State “hopes that the Taiwan question can be resolved peacefully in a manner acceptable to both sides of the Taiwan Strait.” That’s something that, at least to my knowledge, seldom if ever appeared in a Chinese readout, even if as a sentence said by the other side.

Typically, on the subject of Taiwan, Chinese readouts would stop right after relaying the other side’s commitment to upholding their one-China policy or not supporting “Taiwan independence,” which Beijing is happy to hear and broadcast. But the Chinese readouts wouldn’t go one step further - until this time, which I think is an oversight.

There are three reasons. First, this is breaking with well-established precedents with little justifications. Second, one of the key differences between the Chinese and U.S. stances on Taiwan is that Beijing doesn’t renounce non-peaceful means - for many reasons. Thus, the U.S. Secretary of State’s hope that the Taiwan question can be resolved peacefully, as innocuous as it looks on the surface, contradicts more than aligns with the Chinese policy. Third, the “United States linking the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question with its ‘one-China policy’" is something that Beijing guards against vigilantly, which makes the relay even more problematic from the Chinese side.

In June 2023, the then head of the North American and Oceania Affairs of China’s foreign ministry explicitly highlighted

In response to the United States linking the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question with its "one-China policy", Yang Tao said that the Taiwan question has always been one of utmost importance in China-U.S. relations. The United States has made clear commitments on "one China" by acknowledging that there is but one China in the world, Taiwan is a part of China, and the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China”. These commitments are explicitly reflected in the three China-U.S. joint communiqués. This also means that the United States recognizes the true status quo of the Taiwan Strait, that is, there is but one China in the world, and both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China, which the United States calls the "one-China policy". The U.S. "one-China policy" was originally straightforward, using only the three China-U.S. joint communiqués as the attributive words. But later the attributive words became more and more, and the "Taiwan Relations Act" and "Six Assurances to Taiwan" were added. Both the "Taiwan Relations Act" and the "Six Assurances to Taiwan" are unilaterally concocted by the U.S. side, not the consensus between China and the United States. China has resolutely opposed and refused to recognize them from the very beginning. There is also a move by the United States to link the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question with its "one-China policy" and make it a core element of its "one-China policy". This is not a reaffirmation of or adherence to the U.S. political commitment to China, but a distortion of it.

Third, and there are many Chinese and foreign press reports discussing Wang Yi’s use of 好自为之 (hǎo zì wéi zhī), I’ll just shamelessly post my quotes in an Associated Press report by Ken Moritsugu, the AP’s Greater China Correspondent.

China tells Rubio to behave himself in veiled warning

BEIJING (AP) — 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.

“I hope you will act accordingly,” Wang told Rubio, according to a Foreign Ministry statement, employing a Chinese phrase typically used by a teacher or a boss warning a student or employee to behave and be responsible for their actions.

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.

“What could appear to be confusing is thus an intended effect originating from Chinese traditional wisdom and classic practice of speech,” said Wang, who is currently in a mid-career master’s program at Princeton University.

Ryan Hass, now of Brookings and previously a White House official, commented

In @secrubio 's initial call w/ PRC counterpart, he emphasized Taiwan, SCS, and allies. By comparison, @SecBlinken held initial call w/ PRC nearly two weeks later (2/5/21), and stressed Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Burma, and rules-based order. The Biden administration pursued an approach of engaging allies and partners ahead of outreach to PRC and others. The Trump administration appears to be pursuing a more omnidirectional outreach approach upon entering office.

If I may add something on top of the shrewd observation, if the readouts are comparable and representative of the call, and this may be a big if, Beijing could see Rubio's emphasis as less interested in interfering with China's domestic affairs and more focused on potential external crisis points.

Oh, and finally, Rubio's readout came very late. It was almost five hours later than Beijing's readout. I’m sure his new team is just catching up and will speed up soon.

Two days ago, I experimented on a podcast with Robert Wu of Baiguan and China Translated. Peking Playbook is now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and YouTube Podcast. What I picture in my head is a frequent podcast shorter than 25 minutes going through a few top China news of the day with no transcript. But I have zero audio experience or support.

Please listen to it, subscribe to it on your podcast platform, and give me some advice on how to move forward