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White House Quietly Asked Key Ambassador to Stop Mocking China: Report

Rahm Emanuel has taken to jabbing at President Xi Jinping over social media, speculating about Chinese officials who have lost their jobs under mysterious circumstances.

The Biden administration has asked Rahm Emanuel, Washington’s envoy to Japan, to stop taking shots at China President Xi Jinping and his government on social media, three U.S. officials told NBC News. The network reported Wednesday that the National Security Council has conveyed to Emanuel’s team that his pointed tweets are putting the White House’s attempts to mend relations with China at risk. Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff under Barack Obama, ruffled feathers most recently with a Thursday post to Twitter, now X, questioning why a high-level Chinese official hadn’t been seen in public in weeks. “As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,’” Emanuel wrote, speculating with three question marks that Defense Minister Li Shangfu might have been “placed on house arrest???... Might be getting crowded in there.” The 63-year-old diplomat’s remarks are “not in keeping with the message coming out of this building,” a White House official told NBC.