China’s State Media to Donald Trump: Stop Acting Like a Diplomatic Rookie

Want to read a terrifying sentence? Our President-elect Donald J. Trump, Time's new Person of the Year, will take the oath of office in just over six weeks. That means that it won't be long until a man who likes to fly off the handle on Twitter in the middle of the night will be responsible for representing the United States on the world stage, and if the early returns are any indication, we are decidedly fucked.

Last week, Donald Trump accepted a congratulatory phone call from the president of Taiwan. This was the first time that an American president or president-elect has talked to the president of Taiwan in 40-some years, and as a result China was...let's just say miffed. Now, sure, officially their position was pretty by the numbers:

"China firmly opposes any official interaction or military contact between [the] U.S. and Taiwan."

But that doesn't mean they weren't mad—a fact that became especially clear as the Chinese state media began commenting on the story. As Time pointed out, the Chinese government often uses the state media to let its positions be known:

“Trump may dislike, distrust the diplomatic establishment in Washington D.C., and aspire to rework U.S. foreign policies” China Daily wrote in a Dec. 6 editorial. “But he should first come to terms with the real, not imagined, reality of international relations before wielding the scalpel, because a misstep as president will be far more damaging than one as president-elect.”

“To stop acting like the diplomatic rookie he is, the next U.S. president needs help in adapting to his forthcoming role change. Otherwise, he will make costly troubles for his country, and find himself trying to bluster his way through constant diplomatic conflagrations” China Daily wrote.

It's hard to argue that the characterization as a "rookie" is wrong, when Trump took to Twitter to brusquely reduce the complexity of U.S. foreign policy with China to a couple tweets.

In just over six weeks, this guy takes charge. Heaven help us.