Well, that was unexpected. You’d expect it from a snarky teenager but not from a US spy agency.
After a confrontation between White House staffers and Chinese officials regarding protocol at the G20 summit, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released an uncharacteristic tweet which criticized the host nation for the incident. “Classy as always China,” the DIA tweeted while linking to a New York Times article which recounted protocol row.
The diplomatic incident allegedly started when Chinese security guards prevented foreign journalists from filming Barack Obama going down the plane. The heated exchange between a White House press aide and a Chinese official was caught on camera. “This is our plane. We are standing under the wing,” the press aide cried. Undaunted, the Chinese official shouted back: “This is our country! This is our airport!”
The sarcastic tweet was promptly deleted but was noticed by the Wall Street Journal who then wrote about it. The DIA issued an apology saying the tweet did not reflect the view of the agency.
While the tweet raised a few eyebrows, the fact that US-China relations have not been in best form lately is not a surprise. China has consistently denounced US involvement in the South China Sea issue which it claimed was a bilateral issue between them and other claimant nations. The US on the other hand maintained that it had long-standing interest in upholding the freedom of navigation in the region.
