China Tells Trump to Cut the Crap with 'Twitter Diplomacy'

Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s assurance that he will cut back and be more circumspect on Twitter, there’s little evidence to suggest that a President Trump will do any such thing after his inauguration. And China is letting the world know now that they are not amused.

The president-elect tweeted this on Monday:

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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017

Which triggered the Chinese state-run news to blast Trump’s use of Twitter in such a manner.

China has slammed US President-elect Donald Trump over his use of Twitter to conduct international diplomacy in a commentary published by the country’s official news agency Xinhua.

Trump has earned a reputation for making unpredictable statements on Twitter that often depart from long-standing US policies and he’s made several controversial comments about China.

“The obsession with ‘Twitter diplomacy’ is undesirable,” said the bylined commentary, which only appeared on the agency’s Chinese website. Xinhua is the biggest and most influential of China’s state-run media.

“It is a commonly accepted that diplomacy is not a child’s game — and even less is it business dealing. As former United States Secretary of State [Madeleine] Albright said, Twitter should not be a tool for foreign policy,” the commentary, which was published this week, said.

Given Trump’s bombastic and combative nature about being told what to do or not to do, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll acquiesce to China’s request without first doing some damage to our diplomatic relationship with the Chinese government. It’s well-known that Trump holds antagonistic viewpoints when it comes to our economic relationship with the country.

It’s well-known that Trump holds antagonistic viewpoints when it comes to our economic relationship with the country. Who knows what he’ll do once he gets the keys to the @POTUS account in two weeks. As with anything having to do with Donald Trump, we won’t hold our breath and hope for a major character change.