Over the weekend President-elect Donald Trump tweeted about his number one anti-BFF China, again, this time telling it to keep the US underwater drone it seized in the South China Sea even though the country said it'd return it.
We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!
(The US has the drone back now, so the Pentagon clearly disregarded Trump's advice.)
It was all set to be just another surreal tweet from Trump. And it would have been, if the Chinese internet didn't finally break its silence —
@realDonaldTrump
"Raise the national flag, play the national anthem," wrote user "the flower of the state."
— by VPNing over to Twitter from Weibo and starting to spam his account.
@realDonaldTrump 谢谢 谢谢 我们就不客气的收下了 thanks and we take it with thankful
"thanks and we take it with thankful," reads one tweet's English portion.
They thanked him for his intended Christmas gift...
@realDonaldTrump
...and showed the president-elect just how much he'd given them a fright.
@realDonaldTrump Thank you for your gift~~~
In an article published on Sunday, the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, suggested that prior to the election Chinese people considered Clinton to be the more anti-China president candidate.
That seems to have changed, the article notes, now that Trump is the president-elect. Trump's tweets, including accusing China to be a currency manipulator, threatening to impose a higher tax on China imports when he takes office, and touching the "most sensitive spot" of the country by talking to the Taiwanese leader, according to the article, "have angered many in China."
It's true that any fandom that they had for him before he was elected was discarded.
@realDonaldTrump
"What material are you made of, you know the best yourself," reads this caption.
But the Chinese trolls gathered on the PEOTUS's Twitter seem to be...delighted. "You will be the first leader who govern the whole country through Twitter. Grow up, OK?"
@realDonaldTrump You will be the first leader who govern the whole country through twitter.Grow up,OK?
Some of the trolling tweets are, well, just weirdly pleasing to look at tbh.
@realDonaldTrump
Also: cats. Because this is the internet.
@realDonaldTrump
"That being the case, I'm still your father," reads the caption.
Unmemeable subjects inside the country are suddenly fair ammunition in launching a meme war in the name of the country.
@realDonaldTrump :)
(Left to right) Xi Jinping: “isn’t being alive good?” Jiang Zeming: “Right?” Hu Jintao: “Why do you attempt to seek death?"
But they spared some sympathy (emphasis on "some") to the lame duck administration.
@realDonaldTrump Greeting from the Peoples' Republic of China.
Some specifically registered new accounts to troll him — "Old Don, I climbed across the firewall and came to Twitter specially for you! Don't you let me down, produce lots of jokes! I have faith in you!"
@realDonaldTrump 老唐啊，我可是特意为了你才翻墙来的推特啊！你可不要辜负我的一番辛苦，多生产段子！看好你哦！
Others urged Trump to open an account on Weibo — the Chinese social platform that is the equivalent of Twitter — so that they can troll each other more easily, without the hassle of VPN.
@realDonaldTrump welcome to China!!!!!!!please register a weibo ID😂
On Weibo, reports of the tweet naturally blew up. "One of the reasons I like Trump is that I can understand his tweets with a basic college English level," reads one comment that received almost 40,000 likes.
The Chinese trolls are members of "Little Pink" — the digital-savvy millennial generation who directly engage with any figure they consider anti-China in a group manner.
