The mean surface air temperature on Earth has risen about 0.85 °C over the past 100 years, and it will climb at least another 1.5 °C through this century. In the past decades of climate warming, China's wheat production has achieved great success through cultivar renewal and agronomic innovation. Simultaneously, there are increasingly water crisis and environment degradation in China’s main wheat planting regions. To learn China’s adaptation strategy and experiences of wheat production can provide references to other similar countries and regions for coping with climate warming. Here, we present a comprehensive study on warming impacts and China’s strategy of wheat production. Meta-analysis showed that 1.5℃ warming reduced the length of wheat growth duration while increased grain weight. Historical data analysis and genetic test consistently demonstrated that the length of China’s wheat growth duration decreased while the grains per spike and 1000-grain weight increased along with time during the cultivar renewal. Obviously, China's wheat breeding has adopted a strategy by making full use of the positive effects of warming rather than offsetting the negative impacts. Further field experiment showed, however, this strategy caused significant decreases in water and N use efficiencies and wheat root biomass, which means lower resource use efficiency and abiotic stress-tolerance of modern high-yielding cultivars as compared to the old ones. Modern wheat cultivars require more water and N inputs to achieve their high-yield potential, raising serious environmental pollution and water depletion in China’s main wheat planting regions. Thus, while China’s wheat production holds promise for climate change adaptation elsewhere, future efforts should focus on developing green, stress-tolerant and high-yielding cultivars and planting technology.