China downplays Trump's Taiwan call

A rattled Beijing has played down the impact on relations with Washington of US president-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s president, the Financial Times reports. As Beijing tried to evaluate whether US policy had shifted, it launched a formal protest over the call with Tsai Ing-wen, the first between a US president or president-elect and a president of Taiwan since diplomatic relations between Washington and the island were cut in 1979. China views Taiwan as a renegade province. An editorial in the state-run China Daily on Sunday said there was no need to “over-interpret” the phone call, which it called a sign of Mr Trump’s team’s “inexperience” and “lack of proper understanding” of Sino-US and Cross-Strait relations. The English language paper is often used as a platform to explain Beijing’s views to an international audience.