Donald Trump picks Twitter fight with China

It is unclear what led Trump to ditch almost 40 years of diplomatic protocol and take a congratulatory telephone call from Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen.

China said on Monday US President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are clear on China’s position regarding his telephone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing Wen on Friday.

However, Trump fueled the fire on Sunday by complaining about Chinese economic and military policy on Twitter, while on Monday an economic adviser to Trump, Stephen Moore, said if Beijing did not like it, “screw ’em”.

Although China grudgingly accepts unofficial ties with Taiwan, it objects vociferously to arms sales and any official recognition of the island’s government ” both of which Trump referenced in his tweets. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province.

Trump has formally declared China as a “currency manipulator” on the very 1 day of his Presidency, which makes it obligatory for the USA to open its treasury in order to negotiate with Beijing to make their currency Renminbi to rise.

China watchers are trying to work out if the call with Tsai is a sign that Trump is ready to challenge the strategic ambiguity of the “One China” policy itself that has been the cornerstone of bilateral relations since the establishment of diplomatic relations. Making relations sour between these two worldwide bodies.

Trump followed up with tweets accusing China of managing its currency in a way that would damage United States companies, and condemning Beijing for building a military base in the South China Sea, where a handful of countries have overlapping territorial claims.

“This is just the Taiwan side enaging in a petty action, and can not change the “One China” structure already formed by the global community”, he said.

In its white paper, China said it has made “significant efforts in moving the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emission mitigation toward adoption and taking effect”, according to, the government news agency, Xinhua.

It’s also an indicator of the attitude of the incoming USA administration toward Beijing, which is hardly surprising considering Trump has always been critical of China.

If that happens, the domestic support Tsai has received for her call could be countered by greater tensions with China, he said, “What remains to be seen is what kind of ally Taiwan will have in Washington if and when such a shift occurs in the Taiwan Strait”, he wrote in The National Interest.

Unlike Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence has been using the State Department’s recommendations regularly, Kerry said.

Obama has worked to improve cooperation with the country on climate change and North Korea, though deep differences remain, including on China’s territorial grabs in the South China Sea and on cyber issues.

Its decision to speak up about the phone conversation revealed a serious divide between Trump and the Obama administration over how to handle one of the nation’s top geopolitical rivals.

Noting that Sino-U.S. relations had reached a delicate equilibrium thanks to years of careful management, an editorial in the paper warned Trump: “can make a lot of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game”. “We focus on his policies, especially his policies toward China”.

“And it’s unclear to me how that kind of outcome benefits the people of Taiwan or benefits the ninth-largest trading partner of the U.S. So these are significant issues and worthy of careful consideration”.

Taiwan’s presidential office spokesman, Alex Huang, said separately that Taiwan’s relations with China and “healthy” Taiwan-U.S. relations can proceed in parallel.