His tweets since he won the election, along with a phone call he wanted everyone to know about, among other things, suggest that he and his behind-the-scenes encouragers have an unhealthy interest in China.

While his eggers-on, of whatever stripe, will no doubt be encouraging him to put his money where his mouth is and seek to come good on his boast that "I beat China all the time," it is to be hoped that his cock-of-the-walk talk is just the braggadocio which that percipient interpreter of US politics Mark Twain observed when he suggested a similarity between politicians and diapers.

Yet the annals of history are full of people who in pursuit of their own place in the records for posterity managed to incite a mob by playing to their fantasies, and they caution it is something that is best not enabled since it usually ends badly.

Even the modern myths of Hollywood warn that those who pursue power and like to boast and gloat are the ones that are up to no good with their plans for world domination.

The author is a senior editor with China Daily. [email protected]

(China Daily 12/24/2016 page5)