President-elect Donald Trump has taken to Twitter recently to sound off on foreign policy issues.
China isn\u2019t happy.
A story about Mr. Trump\u2019s tweets posted this week on Xinhua, China\u2019s state news agency, said Twitter should not be used as \u201can instrument of foreign policy.\u201d
\u201cAn obsession with \u2018Twitter foreign policy\u2019 is undesirable,\u201d read the headline of commentary from Xinhua on Tuesday, according to a translation from the New York Times.
\u201cEveryone recognizes the common sense that foreign policy isn\u2019t child\u2019s play, and even less is it like doing business deals,\u201d the article said.
Mr. Trump has kept up a consistent pace on Twitter in recent weeks, posting 140-character missives on everything from Guantanamo Bay prisoners to whether he would have beaten President Obama in a hypothetical 2016 matchup.
His tweets also include frequent commentary on foreign policy — and in the last month, a handful of those tweets have been directed at China. On Monday, he tweeted to criticize the U. S.-China trade relationship and to chide China for refusing to \u201chelp with North Korea\u201d:
China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the U. S. in totally one-sided trade, but won’t help with North Korea. Nice!
That tweet prompted China\u2019s foreign affairs minister to respond during a press conference the following day, where he said the \u201cessence of China-U. S. economic cooperation and trade is mutually beneficial\u201d and that China\u2019s position on North Korea \u201cis consistent and clear.\u201d
And shortly before Christmas, he took to Twitter to accuse China of \u201csteal[ing] United States Navy research\u201d:
China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act.
Earlier in December, Mr. Trump tweeted about China\u2019s currency manipulation:
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!
Still, the Xinhua story recognized that tweeting is a \u201chabit\u201d for Mr. Trump, and something they did not expect to stop once he takes office.
\u201cIssuing tweets has become a habit for Mr. Trump,\u201d Xinhua said. Mr. Trump, the story said, \u201cissuing hard-line comments and taking up sensitive issues\u201d might help him in negotiating with other countries.<\/p>\n