The letter wishing “the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster” was sent late — four days after the Chinese New Year holiday officially ended.
The letter wishing “the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster” was sent late — four days after the Chinese New Year holiday officially ended.
But the Chinese government didn’t seem to mind.
It portrayed the letter, from President Trump to President Xi Jinping , as a sign of detente in a relationship that has grown tense since Trump was elected.
“We highly praise” the letter, China’s foreign affairs spokesman, Lu Kang, said Thursday. “As President Xi pointed out, China and the U. S. shoulder special responsibilities to maintain world peace, stability and prosperity.”
Trump has not been kind to China.
He has accused it of manipulating its currency, supporting North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un, economically “raping” the U. S. and creating “the concept of global warming” as a hoax to undercut U. S. manufacturing.
He also offended Beijing by breaking longstanding protocol and holding a phone call with the president of Taiwan, over which China has claimed sovereignty since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s.
Though Trump has spoken by phone with more than a dozen other world leaders since his Jan. 20 inauguration, his only conversation with Xi took place in November, a week after the election.
Trump’s top advisor on trade is Peter Navarro, a hawkish business professor at UC Irvine who directed a documentary called “Death by China.”
And his secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, told the Senate during his confirmation hearing that China should be denied access to artificial islands that it built in contested waters of the South China Sea.
But the newspaper said that Trump’s letter “has been largely seen as a kindhearted message” — and a sign that the two countries may be moving toward a “reasonable strategic relationship.
