Fake Donald Trump tweets are flooding Chinese social media

A series of fake tweets pretending to be those of President Donald Trump are hitting China’s social media as the Lunar New Year begins.

According to a report in Al Jazeera, people are using an app called Jike, which allows a person to enter content and then screenshot a resulting tweet, and more than a million fake tweets have been created in both Chinese and English.

Twitter is currently blocked in China, which could possibly make it hard for people to spot the difference between a real and fake tweet and has already fooled some people.

Among some of the more humorous tweets is one that says “Wish everybody a very happy Chinese New Year! I love China. I love the Chinese people just as I love Melania or Ivanka”, alluding to Mr Trump’s wife and daughter, respectively.

Another plays off his campaign slogan saying “Make you Chicken year great again!” since this Lunar New Year will be for the Year of the Rooster, while another that likely came from a student wrote “All the universities should cancel their homework and exams for Chinese students to enjoy the Spring Festival”.

Mr Trump has frequently spoken about the need to “get tough” on China, making proclamations such as “China is eating our lunch” and has said he would possibly label the nation as a currency manipulator, which has also been supported by some Democrats.

The president’s rhetoric on China has even led to actor Alec Baldwin to mock Trump’s pronunciation of its name on the American comedy show Saturday Night Live.