Trump and China Engage in War of Words

President-elect Donald Trump unleashed a Twitter storm at China on Sunday night and the Chinese used their State-run propaganda outlet to fire back.

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!” Trump exclaimed on the social media outlet Twitter.

To create the illusion of staying out of the battle of words, the Chinese government set one of their propaganda media outlets, The Global Times, on the billionaire.

We should stand firm and remain composed. Trump can make a lot of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game. He doesn’t have sufficient resources to deal with China wantonly, the second largest economy, the biggest trading country and a nuclear power. His many words will not become deeds. What’s more, except for some political radicals, most US people won’t want to take the risk of sinking into a major-power conflict.

The Times called Trump’s remarks “reckless” and that they “show his lack of experience in diplomacy.”

Whether Trump’s remarks against China were set off by China having lodged a complaint about Trump taking a phone call from the President of Taiwan is not known.

The Chinese-controlled newspaper continued its rebuff of Trump saying that they won’t allow Trump to do anything that the Chinese might see as having a negative impact on their agenda – at all costs.

No matter what Trump thinks, China must be determined to upset his unreasonable requests at his early time in office, and fight back if his moves harm China’s interests, regardless of the consequences to the dynamics of the Sino-US relationship.

As a clear indication that China prefers the weak position the U.S. has taken for the last 8 years, they fired one last salvo at the next President of the U.S. by saying that, “He may have overestimated the power of the US.”