Trump targets China in Twitter storm over Taiwan phone call

US President-elect Donald Trump railed against China on Sunday, only hours after his transition team denied that his call with Taiwan’s president signalled 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!”

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.

Watch: Trump talks by phone with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen

In damage-control mode, Pence sought to dismiss the row as “a tempest in a teapot”, contrasting it with Barack Obama’s rapprochement with 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.”