Chinese netizens hit back at Trump after his post-Tsai call tweetstorm

After US President-elect Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that the US disagrees with China's construction in the South China Sea, Chinese netizens started to mock his knowledge of diplomacy.

Since accepting a call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, Trump has continued to post about Taiwan and the South China Sea. On Monday, Trump posted "Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products," "or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!"

A Chinese netizen responded "Did you ask us before you picked up Tsai Ing-wen's phone call?" Another netizen questioned "Can a Twitter post replace the White House Spokesman? Or the US Congress? Of course we should pay attention to Trump's tweets, but we need to take his words with a grain of salt."

"No, we didn't ask you (about our construction in the South China Sea), do you have any problem with that?" a netizen responded on guancha.cn, a Chinese political news website.

"He is just so stupid, did he realize that he just give us a perfect reason to be tough in the South China Sea," another netizen added.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that "The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you," and "Interesting how the US sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

Chu Yin, an associate professor at the University of International Relations, told the Global Times on Monday that "Trump just wants to use a new mistake to cover his previous mistake, and for us, we don't need to treat his words too seriously because he is not a serious person, but if we can make him know that he is wrong, and then he will come to us to ask for negotiation."

"His words on the South China Sea do not matter, we should focus on Taiwan, and since he mentions the US's military export to Taiwan, our government can take action on that, such as sanctioning US companies which are related to military exports to Taiwan," Chu said.