Trump attacks China after criticism over phone call

TIL Desk/World/Washington-The US President-elect has attacked China after he was criticised by Beijing over his recent telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, reports said on Monday. “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),” Trump said in his tweet on Sunday.

He said did Beijing ask before building “a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!,”. Hours before Trump’s attack on Twitter, US Vice President-elect Mike Pence had tried to defuse the controversy over the controversial call by assuring in a television interview that it was only a “courtesy” call.

Tsai telephoned Trump on December 2 to congratulate him on his election success that subsequently provoked a formal protest from the Chinese government and raised high expectations in Taiwan. That call broke almost four decades protocol in the sensitive US foreign policy towards China. It forced the White House to step up to remind that the only Chinese government that Washington has accepted since 1979 is that of Beijing.