China warns ties with US could turn sour under ‘ignorant’ Trump
Ministry expresses concern over US president-elect questioning ‘one-China’ policy; Communist Party-controlled paper calls him naive
BEIJING — China said it has “serious concern” about US President-elect Donald Trump’s latest comments suggesting he is reconsidering America’s relationship with Taiwan, hours after an official paper called him “ignorant as a child” regarding foreign policy.
Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Monday that Trump’s comments in a television interview over the weekend raised the possibility that US-China relations would be “badly affected.” Geng said the “one China” policy was the “political foundation” of any Sino-American ties.
China considers Taiwan to be part of China and any reference to a separate Taiwanese government as a grave insult.
But Trump said on “Fox News Sunday” that he doesn’t feel “bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”
Beijing was already angered by Trump’s December 2 call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to a Taiwanese leader in nearly four decades. The United States switched relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
Hours after Trump’s interview with Fox News Channel aired, the Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper, published a Chinese-language editorial headlined: “Trump, please listen clearly: ‘One China’ cannot be traded.”
“China needs to launch a resolute struggle with him,” the editorial said. “Only after he’s hit some obstacles and truly understands that China and the rest of the world are not to be bullied will he gain some perception.”
“Many people might be surprised at how the new US leader is truly a ‘businessman’ through-and-through,” the paper said, referring to Trump’s suggestion of using the “one-China” policy as a bargaining chip. “But in the field of diplomacy, he is as ignorant as a child.”
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The Global Times, which is published by the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, often runs commentaries that aim for nationalistic sentiment with provocative language.
Before the comments from the Foreign Ministry, Beijing had mostly refrained from responding to Trump, who followed the Tsai phone call with two tweets accusing China of manipulating its currency, taxing American imports and provoking tensions in the South China Sea.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the phone call on a Taiwanese “trick,” and the ministry has repeatedly reaffirmed that Taiwan is a part of China without directly criticizing the president-elect.
Trump appeared afterwards to back off reports that his call with Tsai was planned well in advance by advisers positioning him to confront China over the island. He said he heard about the call “probably an hour or two before.”
“Why should some other nation be able to say I can’t take a call?” he said. “I think it actually would’ve been very disrespectful, to be honest with you, not taking it.”
The Times of Israel Community.