President-Elect Donald Trump And Vice President Elect Pence Hold Election Victory Rally In Ohio (Photo : Getty Images)
China’s “enemy” over the disputed South China Sea islands used to be its Asian neighbors such as the Philippines which elevated the issue to a U.N. tribunal that ruled in favor of Manila. Beijing just added a bigger opponent whom it cannot bully into submission over the disputed islands.
Many Chinese netizens now consider U.S. President-elect Donald Trump an enemy following his recent tweets about the U.S. disagreement with construction activities in the South China Sea. Add as well his phone conversation with the Taiwanese president.
Following Trump’s breach of diplomatic protocol, Chinese netizens called the billionaire a “mad dog,” Time reported. However, the Chinese Communist Party instead blamed the call on Taiwan which Beijing insists is just a province of China.
Trump, in his tweet on Saturday, defended accepting Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s congratulatory phone call as he pointed out that the U.S. sells to Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment. Therefore, it was not wrong for him to accept the call, Globaltimes reported.
The tweets about the South China Sea were made by Trump on Monday which elicited 73,000 likes and 23,000 shares within 10 hours. Trump, a notorious Twitter user, has 16.7 million followers on the microblogging site and Facebook.
His tweet, which angered Chinese netizens, reads: “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 US doesn't tax them), or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!”
However, an adviser of Trump urged the incoming president to just ignore the reaction of Chinese netizens to his tweets. Stephen Moore, chief economist of The Heritage Foundation, defended Trumps speaking to the Taiwanese president on the phone. He said, “Too many namby-pamby people in the foreign policy shop are saying 'Oh my gosh we can't do this, we might insult the Chinese.' I don't care if we insult the Chinese,” The Telegraph quoted Moore.
