In Chinese, Mr. Trump’s name is rendered as Te-lang-pu, and on China’s internet he has gained a similar-sounding nickname, Te-mei-pu, a slang phrase meaning “totally unpredictable.” China has experienced Mr. Trump’s changeable ways more than most countries. As president-elect, Mr. Trump affronted Beijing by holding a telephone call with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, the island-democracy that China claims as its own territory. When Mr. Trump visited Beijing in 2017, Mr. Xi courted him in the imperial Forbidden City. China’s calculus in dealing with Mr. Trump has become even more fraught after he demanded that Mr. Xi’s government investigate Mr. Biden, an aspiring Democratic challenger to Mr. Trump in the 2020 presidential election. “China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Mr. Trump told reporters.

Source: International New York Times October 05, 2019 08:48 UTC