China’s Official Farewell to Trump: ‘Good Riddance!’
Some countries use a U.S. presidential transition as a time to move beyond the harsh rhetoric that may have accompanied the outgoing administration and to set a new tone for the incoming one.Good riddance, Donald Trump!" read a gleeful tweet from Chinese state news service Xinhua in the early morning hours on Wednesday, shortly before President Donald Trump left the White House for the last time. The post linked to a column that blasted the waning days of the Trump administration as a "preposterous show" and decried allied politicians of continued efforts to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on Beijing.To get more
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Moments later, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying in a press conference called outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a "doomsday clown."
Trading public barbs with the Chinese Communist Party was perhaps the most visible element of the Trump administration's foreign policy. And in his final remarks as president on the tarmac before Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday morning, Trump concluded by blaming Beijing for the devastating effect of the coronavirus on the U.S. under his watch, including a reeling economy and the news Tuesday that America had marked 400,000 deaths from the virus.
Pompeo, ever the former Cold Warrior, also centered his ire on China and referenced it frequently in strings of tweets in recent days marking the conclusion of his 1,000 days as secretary of state and influential lieutenant of Trump. Hua's comments Wednesday morning were in response to Pompeo's assertions Tuesday that Chinese treatment of ethnic Uighur's in Xinjiang province amounts to "genocide" – a monumental assertion from a chief diplomat that mirrors widespread international concern. Hua dismissed the claims as "sensational false propositions," a "malicious farce" and "a piece of wastepaper."
The prickly rhetoric in recent days follows months of deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China, driven by Beijing's efforts to contain the fallout from a devastated pandemic that originated in its Wuhan Province. The two countries traded sanctions on its top diplomats and other influential officials, reaching a crescendo over the summer when the U.S. closed the Chinese consulate in Houston amid claims of espionage followed by similar measures China imposed. Tensions ratcheted up again amid the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong despite stark warnings from the U.S. in November and startling language from other Trump officials in December, including outgoing Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe's assertion that China "intends to dominate the U.S."
China would be mistaken to assume, however, that it is forever rid of the Trump administration or its top enforcers. Trump made reference Wednesday to a return to Washington in some form, and Pompeo has long seen to be grooming his own political prospects.