Trump's tweets spark Chinese netizen response

Donald Trump's "unofficial press office", his Twitter account, is attracting the attention of Chinese netizens as he prepares for his inauguration as the 45th president of the United States.

The New York real estate developer is a big fan of Twitter and has sent more than 34,000 tweets since he registered in 2009. His tweeting continued even after he won the presidency in November, with controversial comments, many of them targeting China.

He accused China, in some of those tweets, of manipulating its currency, challenged the one-China policy and defied China's efforts on the Korean Peninsula issue.

Trump said in one tweet: "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back, -let them keep it!" after China seized a US underwater drone in the South China Sea. That elicited a response from Chinese twitter user @xnlxxbb who sent a smiling expression package (picture with text) that said "Hum, go on boasting, I'm listening".

Chinese netizens even created a twitter tag #asktrumpfirst to quiz the "70-year-old man who is addicted to the internet", as they put it.

User @The2ndtuitui asked "If it is OK to know how to dye my hair the same color as yours?". Another Twitter user @isabel_atwood asked Trump "If it is ok to end this term earlier", with a picture of Pikachu (a rodent Pokemon) sighing.

If Trump wanted to be even more well known, then @KurtwantPS2 recommended he sign up on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, because he "will become a famous star in China".

While there is an amusing aspect to Trump's tweets, some believe it is just for show while others argue that they serve a valuable purpose of gauging opinion.

Yuan Shiying, a 22-year-old college student said: "We should not view Trump too simply", although a lot of her classmates think his outspoken personality is kind of cute.

"If he is not a cautious man, then he couldn't become a shrewd businessman and a politician. I think some of his ‘immature behavior' may be a trick to cover his real intentions," she said.

Liu Yangqing, a researcher working for a think tank, believes that Trump is deliberately revealing some of his opinions through Twitter to test the waters of public opinion.

An NBC-WSJ poll released on Wednesday shows that many Americans don't like Trump's Twitter tirades and 69 percent of them called his habitual tweeting a "bad thing".

Not surprisingly, Trump responded, you've guessed it, by tweeting "The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before."

Contact the writher on mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn