Twitter has been the U.S. President-elect’s favorite communication media for months. After Donald Trump controversially spoke with Taiwan’s leader and attacked China using words on Twitter, Chinese media networks are taking aim at him for his outburst on his country’s relationship with Beijing.
Image: FlickrTrump and dangerous Twitter
Trump took to Twitter late Sunday, saying, “Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency [and] build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!”
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang responded by saying that China-U.S. trade has been of “mutual benefit” and that the two countries should continue to work together. However, NBC News reported that the diplomatic response did not match the online sentiment.
Lu Kang told media that they will not speculate on what motivates Trump and his team to take certain moves, “but we will surely make ourselves clear if what they say concerns China.” Lu Kang added that Trump and his team had been made completely aware of “China’s solemn attitude.”
The Chinese newspaper the Global Times, said, “Trump’s reckless remarks against a major power show his lack of experience in diplomacy.”
A user wrote on the Chinese equivalent to Twitter that the only way for the White House to have one day in peace is to cancel Trump’s Twitter account.
“This is why I support him, he will definitely accelerate the economic recession in the U.S,” wrote another user.
Another user said that Trump is running the country with Twitter.
Trump’s tweets and U.S.-China relations
Henry Kissinger, the veteran U.S. diplomat responsible for helping re-establish relations with China in the early 1970s, said he had been very impressed at the “calm reaction of the Chinese leadership, which suggests a determination to see whether a calm dialogue can be developed.”
However, the Global Times claimed that Trump’s China bashing tweets are only a cover for his real intent, “which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it.”
Trump’s verbal attack on China followed criticism over a call that took place between Trump and the leader of Taiwan on Friday. Several people interpreted the call as acknowledging the independence of Taiwan from China. The United States has, for several years, followed the “One China” policy, which does not acknowledge Taiwan as an independent country but rather, goes along with China’s view that Taiwan is a province that broke away, says The Hill.
