China appears to be shrugging off Donald Trump's barrage of insulting tweets, but Chinese netizens are getting some laughs from the U.S. president-elect's Twitter-diplomacy.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang faced an onslaught of questions at the authority's regular press conference on Monday ,after a few days during which Trump accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen and accused Beijing of manipulating its currency, unfairly taxing U.S. products and militarizing the South China Sea.
At the press conference, Lu seemed keen to draw a line under the issue of the president-elect's Friday call with Tsai.
"The world knows clear the position held by the Chinese government on Taiwan-related issues. And I believe that President-elect Trump and his team are also aware of this," he told reporters.
China's Foreign Ministry had lodged a diplomatic complaint with the U.S. about the call, which broke nearly four decades of U.S foreign policy. The 10-minute call was the first by a U.S. head of state with a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when Washington first embraced the "One China" policy under which Beijing views special territories Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as part of China.