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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2016 file photo, a man reads a newspaper with the headline that reads "U.S. President-elect Donald Trump delivers a mighty shock to America" at a newsstand in Beijing. With Trump's... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2016 file photo, a man reads a newspaper with the headline that reads "U.S. President-elect Donald Trump delivers a mighty shock to America" at a newsstand in Beijing. With Trump's latest tweets touching on sensitive issues, China must decide how to handle an incoming American... (Associated Press) 
 
 BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leaders face a challenge: How to deal with Donald Trump. 
 
 Weeks before taking office, the incoming American president is riling Beijing with confrontation and online statements that appear to foreshadow a tougher foreign policy toward China. 
 
 China awoke Monday to sharp criticism posted by Trump on Twitter, days after Beijing responded to his telephone conversation with Taiwan's president by accusing the Taiwanese of playing a "small trick" on Trump. 
 
 Trump wrote, "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 U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!" 
 
 That was apparently prompted by China's response to Trump's talk Friday with Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect is known to have spoken to a Taiwanese leader since the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations in 1979. 
 
 So far, China has avoided responding with open hostility. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China would have "no comment on what motivated the Trump team" to make the tweets, but said he believed both sides would continue to support a "sound and a stable bilateral relationship." 
 
 "For us, for China, we do not comment on his personality," Lu said. "We focus on his policies, especially his policies toward China." 
 
 China's reaction to Trump's call with Tsai was relatively low-key given the sensitivity China places on Taiwan. 
 
 The U.S. and Taiwan retain strong unofficial ties, and the U.S. sells weapons to the self-governing island. But American leaders have for decades avoided any official recognition in deference to China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, to be captured by force if necessary. Trump's reference in another tweet to Tsai as "the President of Taiwan" was sure to inflame China, which considers any reference to Taiwan having a president as a grave insult. 
 
 But China only said it would make a "solemn representation" in Washington, and Lu declined to expand on that statement Monday. Instead, China seemed to offer Trump a face-saving way out of an apparent blunder by blaming the Taiwanese. English-language commentaries then appeared in two state-run newspapers known to be used by China's ruling Communist Party leadership to send messages abroad. 
 
 "Trump might be looking for some opportunities by making waves," the Global Times said in a Monday editorial headlined, "Talk to Trump, punish Tsai administration." 
 
 "However, he has zero diplomatic experience and is unaware of the repercussions of shaking up Sino-U.S. relations," the newspaper said. "It is certain that Trump doesn't want a showdown with China, because it is not his ambition, and neither was it included in his promise to the electorate. He puts out feelers to sound China out and chalk up some petty benefits." 
 
 China's response was characteristically coded. But it now faces an incoming president who deals in outspoken tweets, not communiques. 
 
 Trump used a platform banned by censors in mainland China to renew several of his criticisms during the U.S. presidential campaign. Some of his arguments aren't true. 
 
 Taiwan's official Central News Agency, citing anonymous sources on Saturday, said Edwin Feulner, founder of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, was a "crucial figure" in setting up communication channels between the sides. 
 
 Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Sunday that the phone call shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as a shift in U.S. policy. He shrugged off the attention to the incident as media hype. 
 
 "It was a courtesy call," Pence told NBC's "Meet the Press." 
 
 Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Trump's conversation does not signal any change to long-standing U.S. policy — although some in Taiwan expressed hopes for strong U.S. support from the incoming administration. 
 
 In terms of Trump's criticisms, Chinese imports are taxed at standard U.S. rates, while Washington has recently slapped painful punitive tariffs on Chinese steel, solar panels and other goods. 
 
 And while China once kept a tight grip on the value of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, it now allows it to trade within a bandwidth 2 percent above or below a daily target set by the People's Bank of China. 
 
 The yuan is currently trading at around a six-year low against the dollar. But economists now conclude that the currency is more or less properly valued in relation to the dollar and other foreign currencies. And with economic growth slowing considerably and more Chinese trying to move money out of the country, the government is now spending massively to hold up the yuan's value rather than depressing it as Trump and other critics accuse it of doing. It has also imposed strict controls on Chinese moving money out of the country. 
 
 China has built up its military and constructed man-made islands in the South China Sea, and made sweeping territorial claims over almost the entire critical waterway. Those claims were broadly rejected in June by an international tribunal in The Hague. 
 
 Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People's University in Beijing, predicted China would not lash out immediately, but calibrate its response over the next several months after Trump enters the White House. 
 
 "Trump's remarks will certainly raise the concerns of Chinese leaders," Shi said. "But at the moment, they will be restrained and watch his moves closely." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen and news researcher Liu Zheng contributed to this report. ||||| President-elect sent tweets hours after Mike Pence tried to downplay possibility that Trump could threaten diplomatic rift with Beijing through actions last week 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump railed against China on Sunday, only hours after his transition team denied that his call with Taiwan’s president signaled a new US policy toward Pacific power. 
 
 “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) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?” he tweeted. “I don’t think so!” 
 
 'Putting lipstick on a pig': experts on why Obama is lending Donald Trump a hand Read more 
 
 Earlier on Sunday the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, had tried to downplay the possibility that Trump could threaten a diplomatic rift with Beijing through his actions last week. Trump’s 10-minute phone conversation on Friday with Tsai Ing-wen – thought to be the first time a US president or president-elect has spoken to a Taiwanese leader since 1979 – and subsequent reference to Tsai as “president” threatened such a breach, and implied he might be making up policy on the hoof. 
 
 In damage control mode, Pence sought to dismiss the row as “a tempest in a teapot”, contrasting it with Barack Obama’s rapprochement with communist Cuba. 
 
 “He received a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan,” Pence told ABC’s This Week. “They reached out to offer congratulations as leaders around the world have and he took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that.” 
 
 Later, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Pence again used the term “the president of Taiwan”, suggesting it was no slip of the tongue. 
 
 China views self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification, and any US move implying support for independence – including use of the word “president” – is likely to offend Beijing. 
 
 Chinese state media said Trump’s “inexperience” led him to accept the phone call but warned that any breach of the “one China” stance would “destroy” relations with America. 
 
 Asked by ABC host George Stephanopoulos if he understood China’s objections, Pence replied: “Yes, of course.” But he quickly shifted gear to claim that the American people find Trump’s “energy” refreshing. 
 
 The Indiana governor was asked directly if there were implications for the “one China” policy. “We’ll deal with policy after 20 January,” he said, referring to the day of Trump’s inauguration. 
 
 On NBC, Pence suggested the controversy had been overplayed. “The waters here seem like a little bit of a tempest in a teapot,” he said. 
 
 “I mean, it’s striking to me that President Obama would reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba and be hailed as a hero. And President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan and it becomes something of a thing in the media.” 
 
 Other Trump surrogates sought to neutralise the issue. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, senior aide Kellyanne Conway said her boss was “well aware” of Washington’s “one China” policy. 
 
 “I know China has a perspective on it,” she said. “The White House and state department probably have a perspective on it. Certainly Taiwan has a perspective on it. 
 
 “The president-elect’s perspective is he accepted a congratulatory call. When he’s sworn in as commander-in-chief, he’ll make clear the fullness of his plans. But people shouldn’t read too much into it.” 
 
 Since his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton on 8 November, Trump has accepted congratulatory calls from dozens of world leaders including the prime ministers or presidents of Israel, Singapore, Japan and China, Conway said. 
 
 Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Sunday afternoon, Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be “valuable” to Trump if he took advice from state officials before such calls. Speaking to reporters at Trump Tower, however, Conway said the president-elect was “not really a talking points kind of guy”. 
 
 There were also signs of uncertainty over Trump’s choice of secretary of state. The transition team has previously said the short list was down to four – understood to be Tennessee senator Bob Corker, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former CIA director Gen David Petraeus and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who was the 2012 Republican nominee for president. 
 
 Pence and Priebus defend Trump's claim that millions voted illegally Read more 
 
 On Sunday, Conway told reporters “he’s broadened the search” and the “list is expanding”, and added: “More than four but who knows how many finalists there will be. It’s a big decision and nobody should rush through it.” 
 
 Petraeus appeared on ABC in what some observers billed as an audition for the cross-examination he could expect from Congress over his conviction for mishandling classified material. 
 
 Petraeus pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanour charge after sharing intelligence with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, a former army officer with whom he had an extramarital affair. 
 
 “What I would say to them is what I’ve acknowledged for a number of years,” he said. “Five years ago, I made a serious mistake. I acknowledged it. I apologised for it. I paid a very heavy price for it and I’ve learned from it.” 
 
 Petraeus added that he has given more than 38 years of “in some cases unique service to our country in uniform and then at the CIA”. 
 
 Reflecting on his hour-long meeting with Trump last week, Petraeus, speaking from Germany, said he found the president-elect to be “quite pragmatic” and added: “What I enjoyed most, frankly, was the discussion of issues, if you will, or campaign rhetoric, and placing that in a strategic context.” 
 
 Petraeus’s viability for the job was put to Pence, who insisted that despite Trump’s attacks on Hillary Clinton over her own carelessness with classified emails while secretary of state, the former military leader was an “American hero” and still in contention. 
 
 “He paid a price for mishandling classified information,” he said on NBC. “I think the president-elect will weigh that against the background of an extraordinary career of military service. 
 
 “It will be the president-elect’s decision about the totality of Gen Petraeus’s experience and background.” 
 
 Stephanopoulos also grilled Pence over Trump’s evidence-free claim that “millions of people voted illegally”, denying him victory in the popular vote in the presidential election, in which Clinton leads by more than 2.5m ballots. 
 
 The host made 10 different attempts, through questions or interventions, to make Pence admit the claim was groundless. 
 
 Stephanopoulos asked: “It’s his right to make false statements?” 
 
 Republican defense community fills Reagan shrine with prayers over Trump Read more 
 
 Pence replied: “Well, it’s his right to express his opinion as president-elect of the United States. I think one of the things that’s refreshing about our president-elect and one of the reasons why I think he made such an incredible connection with people all across this country is because he tells you what’s on his mind.” 
 
 Stephanopoulos shot back: “But why is it refreshing to make false statements?” 
 
 Maintaining his cool, Pence said: “Look, I don’t know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you. The simple fact is that ...” 
 
 Stephanopoulos interrupted: “I know there’s no evidence for it.” 
 
 At the end of the exchange, Pence insisted: “He’s going to say what he believes to be true and I know that he’s always going to speak in that way as president.” 
 
 In another series of tweets early on Sunday, Trump threatened heavy taxes as retribution for US companies that move their business operations overseas and still try to sell their product to Americans. 
 
 He promised a 35% tax on products sold inside the US by any business that fired American workers and built a new factory or plant in another country. ||||| President-elect Donald Trump has revived some of his China-bashing from the campaign trail -- but the misleading claims still puzzle economists. 
 
 Trump accused China late Sunday of gaining an unfair advantage over American companies by devaluing its currency and slapping heavy taxes on U.S. products. The attack via Twitter came after a controversial phone call with Taiwan's president on Friday that had already ruffled feathers in Beijing. 
 
 Blasting China over its currency, the yuan, was a recurring theme of Trump's presidential campaign as he appealed to voters disillusioned with the effects of globalization. He labeled Beijing "a big abuser," arguing it has given Chinese exports a boost -- and cost America jobs -- by keeping the yuan artificially low. 
 
 Economists say that was probably true in the past, but China is now battling to stop its currency from falling too much. 
 
 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.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016 
 
 their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016 
 
 Beijing has been trying to give markets a greater role in determining the value of its currency. Between mid-2005 and early 2014, the yuan rose about 30% against the dollar. But as the Chinese economy has slowed in recent years, the yuan has fallen back. 
 
 "The irony of it is they're actually giving the market more say, but the market wants it to be weaker," said Julian Evans-Pritchard, a China expert at Capital Economics. 
 
 Related: China just let its currency hit lows not seen since the financial crisis 
 
 Chinese leaders want to avoid a repeat of the sharp drops that freaked out investors in August 2015 and January 2016. Beijing has burned through hundreds of billions of dollars since last year in efforts to prop up the yuan as huge sums of money have flowed out of the country. 
 
 Its foreign currency war chest, while still substantial, has dwindled to its lowest level in five years. 
 
 Trump attacking China for manipulating the yuan is unlikely to improve matters, economists say. 
 
 "I think in practical terms, it wouldn't do his voters any favors if he does actually try to get China to stop intervening in its currency," Evans-Pritchard said. "If anything, it's just going to make its exports cheaper because the currency will start falling even faster." 
 
 Trump's victory has also helped push the yuan to its lowest levels in about eight years. The U.S. dollar has surged against other currencies on expectations of a rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve this month and the potential for higher growth and inflation under Trump policies. 
 
 And since the U.S. election, the yuan has actually fallen less sharply against the dollar than many other emerging market currencies. And it has strengthened against the currencies of other major trading partners, like the euro and the Japanese yen. 
 
 Related: 3 ways Trump can slap tariffs on China and Mexico 
 
 During his campaign, Trump said he would label China a "currency manipulator," which would require the U.S. Treasury Secretary to hold talks with Beijing on the issue. 
 
 "I think it's just a good way for Trump to show he's being tough on China -- the symbolism is important -- without doing anything that would affect the trade relationship," Evans-Pritchard said. "It's an easy win." 
 
 Of much greater concern is Trump's threat to slap tariffs of as much as 45% on Chinese goods. If he follows through with that, the result could be a trade war that damages both economies. 
 
 Related: 8 reasons why starting a trade war with China is a bad idea 
 
 The yuan wasn't Trump's only beef on Sunday. He also claimed that Beijing "heavily" taxes U.S. products but that the U.S. doesn't tax Chinese goods. 
 
 Economists say it's unclear what he meant. A spokeswoman for Trump didn't respond to a request for more information late Sunday. 
 
 In March, fact-checking website Politifact looked into similar comments Trump made to The New York Times about a "tremendous tax" imposed by China. It rated the claim "mostly false." 
 
 Trump might be referring to the sales tax that China and many other countries charge but the U.S. doesn't. That tax isn't specific to U.S. products, though. It applies to all goods, whether they're made in China or overseas. 
 
 Related: TPP's death hurts America and helps China + Russia 
 
 Another possibility is that Trump is talking about import tariffs, which are generally higher in China than in the U.S. But the U.S. nonetheless imposes some degree of charges on goods from Chinese companies. 
 
 "It seems to me a lot of the issues he's focusing on now are either outdated or don't hold true," said Evans-Pritchard. 
 
 "Maybe he should focus on other grievances," he said, like China's restrictions on foreign investment or subsidies for state-run companies. ||||| With a confused world speculating about Donald Trump’s foreign policy intentions, past statements by the US president-elect are being scrutinised for clues as to which of his radical pledges might come true. 
 
 Despite having no track record in diplomacy, Trump has repeatedly made his world view clear, starting long before he entered the presidential race as a political outsider last year. 
 
 As long as you are paying attention to the issues you raise, you don’t have to necessarily honour every word 
 
 Michael Chertoff 
 
 In the past 30 years, some things about Trump have never changed, according to Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs under George W. Bush: his denigration of Japan, Saudi Arabia and Nato allies and his praise for strongman leaders. 
 
 “You do have to pay attention to what he says. It is indication of how he’s going to go,” said Burns, now professor of the practice of international relations at Harvard Kennedy School. “I take him seriously.” 
 
 In the 1980s, the New York real estate developer began to appear on television shows and in print interviews complaining about Japan dumping cheap cars and electronic devices in the United States and defeating America economically. At the time, Japan was America’s major rival for economic pre-eminence and its companies were purchasing trophy assets in the US like the Rockefeller Centre in Manhattan. 
 
 On September 2, 1987, Trump published full-page advertisements in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe that were billed as an “open letter from Donald J. Trump”. 
 
 “Make Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others pay for the protection we extend as allies,” he said in the advertisements, which cost him a total of US$94,801. 
 
 Trump urged America to “‘tax’ these wealthy nations” and allow its economy to grow by relieving itself of “the cost of defending those who can easily afford to pay us for the defence of their freedom”. 
 
 “Let’s not let our great country be laughed at any more,” he concluded. 
 
 The 70-year-old adopted a similar tone in his presidential campaign, refining the message into the slogan “Make America Great Again” and adding China to the list of those accused of being “currency manipulators” and “job thieves”. 
 
 In pursuing protectionism, Donald Trump is taking a leaf from Asia’s book 
 
 In the course of 16 months of campaigning, Burns added, Trump also consistently demonstrated his disapproval of America’s trade agreements, alliance system and military overcommitment. 
 
 That sounded the death knell for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade pact, dubbed a potential disaster by Trump , with its demise confirmed last month when the president-elect said in a video posted on YouTube that he would withdraw the US from it on his first day in office. 
 
 “It’s a great mistake, but I think he’s going to carry through with this great mistake,” Burns said, referring to an important strategic rationale for the TPP, which was not to let China write the rules of global trade. 
 
 John Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence and deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush who is now professor of international affairs at George Washington University, said killing off the TPP would create a “short-term opportunity” for China to promote its own version of a regional free-trade agreement. 
 
 In the YouTube video, Trump said he would instead look to negotiate bilateral trade deals, with the intention of creating American jobs. 
 
 Trump’s 1987 call for America to tax other nations evolved into a campaign pledge to impose a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese imports. 
 
 ‘Breathtaking’ resistance to Romney becoming secretary of state, says top Trump aide 
 
 Burns said it was inconceivable that the US would begin a trade war with China next year, but any US administration would have to take a tough-minded approach to trade with the world’s biggest exporter given allegations of dumping and Beijing’s lack of compliance with international rules such as those protecting intellectual property rights. 
 
 Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said some of Trump’s campaign statements suggested an inclination, but not necessarily the exact policies he would implement. 
 
 “As long as you are paying attention to the issues you raise, you don’t have to necessarily honour every word. You just have to kind of get the music, even if not the lyrics,” Chertoff said. 
 
 Burns compared the proposed imposition of punitive tariffs on China with previous Trump remarks encouraging Japan and South Korea to develop nuclear weapons, suggesting they would used to get President Xi Jinping’s attention in his first meeting with the new US president. 
 
 “Trump wrote The Art of the Deal. What did he say in The Art of the Deal? You start with your maximum positions,” Burns said. 
 
 In a surprise development, Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen had a telephone conversation on Friday, in which the two noted the close economic, political, and security ties between the island and the US. Taipei said the phone call was initiated by Tsai, and Beijing described the move as a “petty trick”. It is not known whether Trump intends to increase American engagement with Taiwan. 
 
 The billionaire is viewed by Chinese leaders as a pragmatic businessman and a willing negotiator, according to Yun Sun, an expert in China’s foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, with many of Trump’s claims possibly opening positions for future negotiations. 
 
 Many previous US presidential candidates had also branded China a currency manipulator, Yun said, with the accusation becoming “campaign rhetoric we have developed a fatigue about ... we are not going to take this super seriously”. 
 
 Four reasons why Trump will learn a Chinese lesson on how isolationism never works 
 
 Burns said one of the most “dangerous things” Trump said during the campaign – a threat to withdraw US troops from South Korea and Japan unless they contributed more financially – also harked back to earlier statements. While it might also be a negotiating gambit, Burns said, by simply saying what he had, Trump had already damaged America’s relationship with two key allies and eroded the foundation of its international strength. 
 
 In New York on November 17, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe became the first foreign leader to meet the president-elect, hoping to “build trust” with America’s next commander in chief. 
 
 “I hope [Trump’s opinion on Japan] will change because Japan is a very critical, very valued ally of the United States,” Burns said. 
 
 He said that with North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile capabilities developing rapidly, and posing an urgent security challenge by possibly bringing the US mainland within range in the next few years, Trump should reinforce ties with Japan and South Korea and put pressure on Beijing to exercise its influence on Pyongyang. 
 
 The deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea was a part of America’s leverage when dealing with China, he said. 
 
 “For Donald Trump it is a very effective opening gambit – ‘we are going to double the force there if we have to’,” Burns said. 
 
 Sun said the likelihood of any negotiation between Trump and Xi on the THAAD deployment would depend on how Trump defined America’s national interests on the Korean Peninsula. But Trump had never given any indication that he viewed North Korea as an issue of significance, simply saying “it’s China’s problem to fix”. 
 
 The president-elect showed a similar lack of knowledge about other hot spots in the relationship between US and China such as the South China Sea, said Stephen Nagy, an associate professor of politics and international relations at International Christian University in Tokyo. 
 
 Global financial rules: Trump looks determined to rip them up and start again 
 
 But he will have a team and a mechanism to advise, check and balance him, and prevent his policies from becoming too subject to personal whim. 
 
 Burns said: “Of course he has to rely on the advice of his senior cabinet officials … plus there’s career government, career foreign services, career ambassadors, career military.” 
 
 Trump’s statements about putting America first and retreating from its role as the world’s policeman have led to debate about whether he is an isolationist. But Chertoff said it was more likely Trump would move back to the approach adopted by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger in the 1970s, which was focused on the balance of power and spheres of influence. 
 
 “Stepping away from what would be regarded as the Russian sphere or Chinese sphere, that’s not isolationism,” Chertoff said. 
 
 Jane Harman, president of the Washington-based Wilson Centre think tank, said none of the people named or tipped for top foreign policy posts in the Trump administration were isolationists. 
 
 Trump has announced retired general Michael Flynn, a former director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, as his national security adviser, and another retired general, James Mattis, as his secretary of defence. Flynn has taken a tough stance on Islamism and Mattis has described “political Islam” as the major security issue facing the US. 
 
 China to keep eye on Trump policies, vows to defend its trading rights 
 
 Trump has yet to announce his pick for secretary of state, which will be another key indicator of his administration’s orientation. 
 
 Chertoff said Trump would not go back to a classic, conservative, Republican set of policies, but “drive the bus himself in a sense that reflects his world view”. 
 
 “The question is, will he have advisers he would listen to?” Harman said.
– The Donald Trump phone conversation that led to an official complaint from Beijing was a calculated move, not an innocent congratulatory call or a blunder made by a man with no knowledge of foreign policy, insiders tell the Washington Post. Instead, the provocative conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was a deliberate effort to break with the previous 37 years of US policy on Taiwan and had been planned for months, the sources say. They say the move was the product of talks between Trump aides, many of whom are hawkish on China, and their Taiwanese counterparts. In other developments: Adding to the controversy, Trump used his medium of choice to harshly criticize China on Sunday. "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) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?" he tweeted. "I don't think so!" Hours before Trump's tweetburst, Mike Pence tried to downplay the importance of the Taiwan call, reports the Guardian. "He received a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan," the vice president-elect told ABC's This Week. "They reached out to offer congratulations as leaders around the world have and he took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes, and it was precisely that." On NBC, Pence described the furor as a "tempest in a teapot" and wondered why Trump is getting a hard time now when Obama was "hailed as a hero" for reaching out to a "murdering dictator in Cuba." Analysts tell CNNMoney that Trump's criticisms of China would have been valid years ago but are now outdated: The country is now fighting to keep its currency from falling further, not to keep the yuan low to boost exports. The South China Morning Post reports that the position Trump has adopted on China is consistent with policies he has been advocating for at least 30 years. In the 1980s, he repeatedly slammed Japan, then America's main economic rival, for allegedly dumping cheap goods on the US market. In 1987, he took out full-page newspaper ads calling for more backbone in US foreign policy. The AP reports that China has responded fairly mildly to Trump's latest comments, with Foreign Minister Lu Kang saying Monday that the government won't comment on Trump's personality or on his tweets, but that it continues to hope for a "sound and a stable bilateral relationship." An editorial in the government-run Global Times blamed Taiwan for the controversy. Trump "has zero diplomatic experience and is unaware of the repercussions of shaking up Sino-US relations," the paper said. "It is certain that Trump doesn't want a showdown with China, because it is not his ambition, and neither was it included in his promise to the electorate. He puts out feelers to sound China out and chalk up some petty benefits."