Trump Messes with China Again

China has taken a US underwater drone that probably looked like this one

Following President-Elect Donald Trump's chat on the phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, tensions between China and the United States have escalated further after the former seized a US navy underwater drone in international waters in the South China Sea.

Trump's initial tweet reacting to the incident

The US claims the drone was used for research purposes, while China says it was "professional and responsible" in taking the device, and Beijing says will return it in an "appropriate manner" without elaborating further.

And to further escalate the situation, Trump waded into the issue with an off-the-cuff tweet -- "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented [sic] act."

What he really meant was "unprecedented", which he changed an hour later.

Handling his public statements would be the ultimate nightmare for any press secretary because Trump seems to like to shoot off whatever knee-jerk reaction he has on Twitter, completely unfiltered. Which also means spelling mistakes are highly probable.

China's unprecedented construction in the South China Sea

Will this end come January 20 when he is formally inaugurated as the 45th president?

We shall see, but in the meantime, China can very easily play the tit-for-tat game with Trump. It's like a wise cat biding its time with a mouse that thinks it can outsmart a feline with nine lives...

What the Premier Didn't Mention

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang addressing the media today in a press conference

Ah, the National People's Congress is over for another year.

Premier Li Keqiang held a press conference, where he was supposedly open to answering all questions from the media -- provided they were screened first.

Foreign media had to submit questions in advance, and only the ones that were approved were allowed to be asked -- if they were chosen in the huge crowd.

Hundreds of journalists were in the room listening to Li

And domestic media are typically given pieces of paper with questions on them, usually softball ones to give the premier a chance to talk about things he wanted to discuss.

But what would stop someone from asking a hard-hitting question -- other than probably being banned from the NPC forever -- at least it would get the premier to actually address an issue that everyone wants to know.

And so from reading news reports of today's press conference, it sounds like a lot of issues were not addressed, making people wonder if the government cares about their welfare, or is actually tackling the country's socio-economic challenges.

Li did not bring how China is tackling air pollution

For example in the past three years, Li answered questions about the environment and what the government was doing to curb pollution, but this year the topic was not raised, even though air quality has been so bad this past year.

This year was also the first time issues about the property market were not addressed either, as prices rise far beyond the reach of ordinary people. Perhaps Li could not think of another way to spin the story...

While he answered questions about economic form and the need to streamline bureaucracy, the massive problem of how to further streamline state-owned enterprises was not mentioned. It's probably too explosive a powder keg to even begin to delve into...

No talk of China's growing presence in the South China Sea

When it came to foreign relations, he did not talk about China's relationship with Africa or Europe, and also its growing presence in the South China Sea. What is going on with that island that China seems to be making bigger and bigger...? And didn't Beijing have good relations with African countries? What happened there?

Human rights is not a topic that is often mentioned at these press conferences, but sometimes previous premiers have talked about it on occasion. Not this time, despite blatant human rights abuses against Uighurs and Tibetans...

It sounds like an extremely tightly controlled press conference, and perhaps even Li could not say much either, which is why he ended it at exactly the two-hour mark, including translations into English. So in the end it was probably one hour's worth of questions.

Thus wraps up another year, with China watchers having to further examine their tea leaves to try to figure out where the country is going.