WASHINGTON _ It only took the Chinese government a month to penetrate Donald Trump's headquarters in Manhattan amid the president-elect's ongoing aggressive words and deeds against Beijing.
CCTV America is the U.S.-based arm of China Central Television, which is run by the Chinese government. A blurb on its website defines the network as "the media crossroads where news and 'views' about the world's two largest national economies intersect and sometimes collide."
It is not clear why that single word is the lone one in quotation marks.
The network has a correspondent camped out in the Trump Tower lobby on Friday, pulling what's known as "in-town pool duty," meaning the reporter was documenting those coming from and going to meetings with Trump before the president-elect departed for events in Louisiana and Michigan. The correspondent also accompanied him to the airport.
Chinese state-run media's presence is ironic given the president-elect's tough stance on China, and what experts expect to be a harder line on Beijing than those practiced by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
The CCTV America reporter was tracking activity at Trump Tower just over 12 hours after the president-elect used part of a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, to again criticize the Asian power.
He said Chinese leaders "haven't played by the rules, and they know it's time that they're going to start." Trump also accused Beijing of "massive" theft of American companies' intellectual properties.
For months, the incoming U.S. chief executive has criticized China for allegedly building military bases on disputed South China Sea islands. And he has vowed to, shortly after assuming the powers of the presidency, label Beijing a currency manipulator.
Last Sunday morning, Trump took to Twitter to criticize China's currency policies.
Another state-run Chinese media outlet, China Daily, had harsh words for the incoming U.S. commander in chief.
"To stop acting like the diplomatic rookie he is, the next U.S. president needs help in adapting to his forthcoming role change," the newspaper wrote in a Dec. 6 editorial. "Otherwise, he will make costly troubles for his country, and find himself trying to bluster his way through constant diplomatic conflagrations."
