Rahm Emanuel, ambassador to Japan and a former Obama administration official, reportedly received a scolding from the White House about messages he's posted taunting China in recent weeks.
Emanuel’s tweets are "not in keeping with the message coming out of this building," an anonymous White House official told NBC News. Biden administration officials from the National Security Council reportedly reached out to Emanuel's staff and asked that he stop sending the messages, as they risk undermining the work being done to ease tensions with China.
In one social media post, Emanuel mocked China for the recent disappearances from public view of high-profile regime officials.
"President Xi's cabinet lineup is now resembling Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None," Emanuel wrote in the post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. "First, Foreign Minister Qin Gang goes missing, then the Rocket Force commanders go missing, and now Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn't been seen in public for two weeks. Who's going to win this unemployment race? China's youth or Xi's cabinet?"
Reuters asked the State Department this week about the sarcastic social media post concerning China's missing defense minister, Li Shangfu.
Emanuel has always spoken in "a colorful manner," a State Department spokesman told the outlet.