China hits Trump as ‘diplomatic rookie’

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters it was unclear what potential benefit Mr Trump’s phone call with Tsai Ing-wen had to the United States, China, or Taiwan.

“But the issue should be this – does Taiwan deserve a little more space?”

To another burst of laughter, he added “I would expect more of this kind of creativity” from President Trump.

Things blew up to the extent that Beijing lodged a complaint with the United States, slamming Trump for going against decades-old diplomatic protocol. “But we need to make our position and attitude very clear”, Lu said.

On Tuesday, an opinion piece in the overseas edition of China’s People’s Daily newspaper said that “provoking disagreements with China will not help resolve USA domestic problems, won’t help achieve the new Trump administration’s domestic agenda”. Trump tweeted. “I don’t think so!”

“I love the fact that Trump did that”.

“It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory”, Geng Shuang, a ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

Trump fired off two tweets on Sunday blasting China for devaluing its currency, taxing American imports, and building military installations in the South China Sea.

Did China ask us. if it was OK to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? “I don’t think so!” During his first term in office, the then Thai leader openly welcomed Hu Jintao in 2003 as the next leader of China and told him that his appointment as the country’s president was more important than the head of the Communist Party. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims.

Yates is now chairman of the Idaho Republican Party and was one of those responsible for including the “Six Assurances”, given to Taiwan by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1982, and the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act in the Republican Party’s platform at its national convention in July this year. Republican Trump, a real estate developer who has never previously held public office, takes office on January 20 after winning the November 8 election.

The conversation was a first by a U.S. president or president-elect since Washington cut ties with Taiwan in 1979 and committed to the “one-China” principle, which recognizes Taiwan as a part of China.

China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.

Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Trump appears to be signaling a willingness to increase ties with Taiwan, but not necessarily a full overhaul of US policy.

Pence called the uproar over the call with “democratically elected” Tsai a “tempest in a teapot”.