The official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party has repeated President Xi Jinping's warning against playing with fire over Taiwan, ahead of a possible visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The commentary in People's Daily did not mention her by name, while other official outlets refrained from direct attacks on her, but did report warnings by former president Donald Trump against visiting.
Meanwhile, more fiery comments on social media - including calls for a direct military response - remained uncensored and went viral on the country's tightly controlled internet.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Pelosi has declined to disclose details of her Asian trip citing security reason.
Saturday's commentary, attributed to Zhong Sheng, a pen name often used for official comments on major issues concerning China's foreign relations, repeated a statement by Xi during his two and a half-hour talk with US President Joe Biden earlier this week that "it was the will of 1.4 billion Chinese people to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity".
"Public opinion cannot be defied and those who play with fire will definitely set themselves on fire. The US must see this point clearly and abide by the one-China principle with its words and deeds," the commentary said.
It also calls for more dialogue between the two countries "to manage their differences ... and avoid wrong judgments".
It continued that Biden and Xi had "emphasised the importance of more communication and have reached a consensus on communication. The working teams of the two countries should put the consensus into action and enhance the clarity and stability of the bilateral relations through candid communication".
The article also lays out areas of cooperation for the two countries including maintaining a stable supply chain, energy and food security, containing Covid and dealing with the risks of deflation and recession.
Some state media outlets reported Trump's warning to Pelosi that "the China mess is the last thing she should be involved in - She will only make it worse".
"Everything she touches," he wrote on his social media outlet Truth Social "turns to Chaos, Disruption, and 'C***.'"
On Chinese social media angry comments and threats to intercept Pelosi's plane were among the most popular topics on Saturday.
A Weibo page for posts with the hashtag "if Pelosi goes to Taiwan, Chinese military would not just sit and watch" was read 830 million times by 6pm, although only 30,000 comments appeared. It has long been a practice for mainland internet censors to manage comments online to prevent public opinion from getting out of control.