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Fan Chen

US President Donald Trump – known for his combative and prolific social media style – struck an unusually restrained online tone during his state visit to China.
Trump has shared only 10 social media updates since landing in Beijing on Wednesday evening – mostly videos of his arrival in Beijing and official greetings received from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The latest posts include hailing Xi as “one of the World’s Great Leaders” and asserting that the US should have a ballroom like China does, a sentiment seemingly inspired by Thursday’s state banquet in the Chinese equivalent.
Another post included a screenshot of an American media report citing a Chinese academic as rating Trump’s visit as “9.99 out of 10”.


The message was consistent with his other lengthier and upbeat posts that focused on highlighting the successes of his trip.
At 5.42am Beijing time on Friday, hours before meeting his Chinese counterpart, Trump wrote on social media that Xi had congratulated him “on so many tremendous successes in such a short period of time”.
He went on to list the achievements of his administration, including the “military victory and thriving relationship in Venezuela” and “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
“Two years ago, we were, in fact, a Nation in decline,” ran the concluding section. “But now, the United States is the hottest Nation anywhere in the world, and hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!”
The restraint he showed on his China trip stood in sharp contrast to Trump’s usual relentless, rapid-fire online style. Last year, with staff help, he posted at least 6,000 times, or about 18 posts a day, according to a tally by Hearst.
He was in familiar form even hours before departing for China, firing off more than 50 posts between Monday night and Tuesday morning, targeting political rivals and attacking predecessors like Barack Obama with doctored or AI-generated images.
His reticence during his time in Beijing contrasted sharply with his state visit to the United Kingdom last year, for instance. Trump posted at least 65 times during the September 16-18 stay, but only three of those updates were related to the official visit, specifically documenting his arrival in London.

A month later, he was on a state visit to Japan – another key US ally. The October 27 to 29 trip found Trump posting more than 40 times, including eight updates on engagements with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
A Wall Street Journal analysis noted that Trump’s late-night posts often used outside content to reinforce his polarising rhetoric. These social media outbursts typically focused on attacking opponents, warning of immigrant threats and promoting various conspiracies, the May 12 article said.
But Trump’s digital restraint in China also carried over to his media interactions with the press.
The US leader, who usually engages freely with the media, ignored reporters during Thursday afternoon’s tour of the Temple of Heaven alongside Xi.
He did the same the next morning as Xi showed him around the Zhongnanhai leaders’ compound, potentially out of respect for the Chinese president, who does not hold press conferences.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Just a handful of online posts from US president contrast with the flurry during his most recent state visits to the UK and Japan

Just a handful of online posts from US president contrast with the flurry during his most recent state visits to the UK and Japan