Chinese state media warned the U.S. that "messing up China-U.S. relations won't help 'make America great again,’" a direct response to President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE's call with Taiwan's president over the weekend.

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The rhetoric comes via a front-page opinion piece in the overseas edition of People's Daily, the biggest newspaper group in China.

It characterizes Trump as a "diplomatic rookie" who would be ill-advised to challenge the communist nation’s positions on matters such as trade and Taiwan.

"Provoking friction and messing up China-US relations won't help 'make America great again,'" the op-ed warns, borrowing Trump’s signature phrase from the campaign trail.

Another state-run Chinese media outlet, the Global Times, featured a front-page story on Trump's "inability to keep his mouth shut", and slammed what it called his "provocation and falsehoods."

Trump's call with Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen has been largely criticized and scrutinized by American media as well.

A Monday CNBC headline declared, "Trump may have just thrown decades of US-China relations into disarray."

A Tuesday headline in the Wall Street Journal read, "Wooed by Donald Trump, Taiwan Trembles; Many fear the island, rather than the U.S., will bear the brunt of Beijing’s ire.”

The reaction by China comes after Trump also criticized it for devaluing its currency, constructing additional military installations in the South China Sea and taxing US imports via Twitter on Sunday.

Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

The call between Trump and Tsai was the first between a U.S. president or president-elect with any Taiwanese leader since 1979, when diplomatic relations were broken off in accordance with the One China policy, which in effect forces countries to either recognize diplomatically the People's Republic of China, on the mainland, or the Republic of China, in Taiwan, but not both.

The Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as a breakaway province following the country's civil war, when the nationalist government retreated to the island.