SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Chinese Newspaper: Trump Has 'No Sense of How to Lead a Superpower'
Newspaper controlled by Communist Party says China "will not exercise restraint" if Trump's tweets indeed prove prescient
Dec 19, 2016
President-elect Donald Trump "is not behaving as a president who will become master of the White House in a month," the Chinese newspaper Global Times wrote in an editorial on Monday. "He bears no sense of how to lead a superpower."
The denunciation from the state-sanctioned publication came after Trump weighed in on Twitter over China's seizure, last week, of a U.S. underwater drone. The incident prompted criticism from the Pentagon, but U.S. defense officials said over the weekend that China will return the drone on Tuesday, a claim confirmed by China's military.
Trump's tweets came amidst the diplomatic maneuvering, the first berating China's "unprecedented act" and a later post telling China to "keep" the U.S. Navy drone it "stole."
Trump's Twitter posts "breathed new life into an incident that both militaries seem eager to put behind them," CBS News wrote, though Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus on Sunday "defended the comments on the drone, saying he does not believe Trump's comments were provocative and that '80 percent' of Americans agree it was inappropriate for China to have seized the drone in the first place," Reuters reported.
Still, the Global Times blamed Trump for stirring the pot, writing:
Among U.S. voices, the tweets by President-elect Donald Trump have added the most fuel to the fire. His initial tweet said "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters--rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act," in which he misspelled unprecedented, amusing American netizens. Later he posted another tweet saying "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back. --let them keep it!" He seemed emotionally upset, but no one knows what he wanted to say.
Trump is not behaving as a president who will become master of the White House in a month. He bears no sense of how to lead a superpower. Even the U.S. military did not use the term "steal" to describe the move by the Chinese navy. Trump's second tweet makes people worry that he will treat China-U.S. relations as child's play.
Now people don't know if Trump is engaged in a psychological war with China or he is just unprofessional, even though he will be sworn in soon.
Meanwhile, the Guardian adds that the newspaper's "controversial" editor, Hu Xijin, made similar comments in an online video "that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times."
Washington, D.C.-based China expert Bill Bishop, who publishes the newsletter Sinocism, joked to the Guardian: "This is unpresidented behavior by a precedent-elect. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high."
"This kind of uncertainty, this kind of petulance, this kind of random tweeting...is not a grand strategy that is going to push the Chinese on to their heels so they are going to make concessions," he said. "This is juvenile, immature, inexperienced behavior that has the potential to lead to many problems in the U.S.-China relationship, some of which could have some pretty serious and damaging ramifications."
Indeed, Trump's style contrasts sharply with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom journalist Chris Buckley describes for the New York Times as "disciplined and steely."
The drone incident, Buckley writes, "has given a taste of how Mr. Trump's and Mr. Xi's different styles could play out if bigger tensions were to break out over the South China Sea, trade imbalances, North Korea's nuclear weapons, or other issues that Mr. Trump has raised."
Jessica Chen Weiss, an associate professor at Cornell University who studies Chinese foreign policy, told Buckley: "Xi Jinping is more measured in his public statements than Donald Trump, but the Chinese government will likely hit back quite forcefully against any radical efforts to challenge the status quo. The best thing the president-elect's advisers can do for our national security is to screen Trump's tweets."
As the Global Times warned: "Since he has not taken office, China has kept a calm attitude toward his provocative remarks. But if he treats China after assuming office in the same way as in his tweets, China will not exercise restraint."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
President-elect Donald Trump "is not behaving as a president who will become master of the White House in a month," the Chinese newspaper Global Times wrote in an editorial on Monday. "He bears no sense of how to lead a superpower."
The denunciation from the state-sanctioned publication came after Trump weighed in on Twitter over China's seizure, last week, of a U.S. underwater drone. The incident prompted criticism from the Pentagon, but U.S. defense officials said over the weekend that China will return the drone on Tuesday, a claim confirmed by China's military.
Trump's tweets came amidst the diplomatic maneuvering, the first berating China's "unprecedented act" and a later post telling China to "keep" the U.S. Navy drone it "stole."
Trump's Twitter posts "breathed new life into an incident that both militaries seem eager to put behind them," CBS News wrote, though Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus on Sunday "defended the comments on the drone, saying he does not believe Trump's comments were provocative and that '80 percent' of Americans agree it was inappropriate for China to have seized the drone in the first place," Reuters reported.
Still, the Global Times blamed Trump for stirring the pot, writing:
Among U.S. voices, the tweets by President-elect Donald Trump have added the most fuel to the fire. His initial tweet said "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters--rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act," in which he misspelled unprecedented, amusing American netizens. Later he posted another tweet saying "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back. --let them keep it!" He seemed emotionally upset, but no one knows what he wanted to say.
Trump is not behaving as a president who will become master of the White House in a month. He bears no sense of how to lead a superpower. Even the U.S. military did not use the term "steal" to describe the move by the Chinese navy. Trump's second tweet makes people worry that he will treat China-U.S. relations as child's play.
Now people don't know if Trump is engaged in a psychological war with China or he is just unprofessional, even though he will be sworn in soon.
Meanwhile, the Guardian adds that the newspaper's "controversial" editor, Hu Xijin, made similar comments in an online video "that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times."
Washington, D.C.-based China expert Bill Bishop, who publishes the newsletter Sinocism, joked to the Guardian: "This is unpresidented behavior by a precedent-elect. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high."
"This kind of uncertainty, this kind of petulance, this kind of random tweeting...is not a grand strategy that is going to push the Chinese on to their heels so they are going to make concessions," he said. "This is juvenile, immature, inexperienced behavior that has the potential to lead to many problems in the U.S.-China relationship, some of which could have some pretty serious and damaging ramifications."
Indeed, Trump's style contrasts sharply with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom journalist Chris Buckley describes for the New York Times as "disciplined and steely."
The drone incident, Buckley writes, "has given a taste of how Mr. Trump's and Mr. Xi's different styles could play out if bigger tensions were to break out over the South China Sea, trade imbalances, North Korea's nuclear weapons, or other issues that Mr. Trump has raised."
Jessica Chen Weiss, an associate professor at Cornell University who studies Chinese foreign policy, told Buckley: "Xi Jinping is more measured in his public statements than Donald Trump, but the Chinese government will likely hit back quite forcefully against any radical efforts to challenge the status quo. The best thing the president-elect's advisers can do for our national security is to screen Trump's tweets."
As the Global Times warned: "Since he has not taken office, China has kept a calm attitude toward his provocative remarks. But if he treats China after assuming office in the same way as in his tweets, China will not exercise restraint."
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
President-elect Donald Trump "is not behaving as a president who will become master of the White House in a month," the Chinese newspaper Global Times wrote in an editorial on Monday. "He bears no sense of how to lead a superpower."
The denunciation from the state-sanctioned publication came after Trump weighed in on Twitter over China's seizure, last week, of a U.S. underwater drone. The incident prompted criticism from the Pentagon, but U.S. defense officials said over the weekend that China will return the drone on Tuesday, a claim confirmed by China's military.
Trump's tweets came amidst the diplomatic maneuvering, the first berating China's "unprecedented act" and a later post telling China to "keep" the U.S. Navy drone it "stole."
Trump's Twitter posts "breathed new life into an incident that both militaries seem eager to put behind them," CBS News wrote, though Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus on Sunday "defended the comments on the drone, saying he does not believe Trump's comments were provocative and that '80 percent' of Americans agree it was inappropriate for China to have seized the drone in the first place," Reuters reported.
Still, the Global Times blamed Trump for stirring the pot, writing:
Among U.S. voices, the tweets by President-elect Donald Trump have added the most fuel to the fire. His initial tweet said "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters--rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act," in which he misspelled unprecedented, amusing American netizens. Later he posted another tweet saying "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back. --let them keep it!" He seemed emotionally upset, but no one knows what he wanted to say.
Trump is not behaving as a president who will become master of the White House in a month. He bears no sense of how to lead a superpower. Even the U.S. military did not use the term "steal" to describe the move by the Chinese navy. Trump's second tweet makes people worry that he will treat China-U.S. relations as child's play.
Now people don't know if Trump is engaged in a psychological war with China or he is just unprofessional, even though he will be sworn in soon.
Meanwhile, the Guardian adds that the newspaper's "controversial" editor, Hu Xijin, made similar comments in an online video "that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times."
Washington, D.C.-based China expert Bill Bishop, who publishes the newsletter Sinocism, joked to the Guardian: "This is unpresidented behavior by a precedent-elect. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high."
"This kind of uncertainty, this kind of petulance, this kind of random tweeting...is not a grand strategy that is going to push the Chinese on to their heels so they are going to make concessions," he said. "This is juvenile, immature, inexperienced behavior that has the potential to lead to many problems in the U.S.-China relationship, some of which could have some pretty serious and damaging ramifications."
Indeed, Trump's style contrasts sharply with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom journalist Chris Buckley describes for the New York Times as "disciplined and steely."
The drone incident, Buckley writes, "has given a taste of how Mr. Trump's and Mr. Xi's different styles could play out if bigger tensions were to break out over the South China Sea, trade imbalances, North Korea's nuclear weapons, or other issues that Mr. Trump has raised."
Jessica Chen Weiss, an associate professor at Cornell University who studies Chinese foreign policy, told Buckley: "Xi Jinping is more measured in his public statements than Donald Trump, but the Chinese government will likely hit back quite forcefully against any radical efforts to challenge the status quo. The best thing the president-elect's advisers can do for our national security is to screen Trump's tweets."
As the Global Times warned: "Since he has not taken office, China has kept a calm attitude toward his provocative remarks. But if he treats China after assuming office in the same way as in his tweets, China will not exercise restraint."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.