Foreign Ministry: story of Trump phone-tapping is fiction

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman took a humorous approach to a report accusing China of listening in on US President Donald Trump's iPhone conversations.

"I have also seen the report mentioned by you," spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday, in response to a question about the story in The New York Times.

"I think that now certain people in the US are sparing no effort to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay," she said.

The newspaper also cited US officials as saying that the Chinese government hopes that eavesdropping could help in its strategy concerning the trade friction between the two countries.

"If possible, I have three pieces of advice for them," Hua said.

"Firstly, The New York Times should have known that releasing such a report would only add to evidence that it was fabricating fake news," she said.

"Secondly, if they are worried that their iPhones may be eavesdropped on, they might want to use the mobile phones produced by Huawei (a Chinese telecom company).

"Thirdly, if they are still not reassured, for the sake of absolute security, they may stop using all modern communications devices and cut themselves off from the outside world," Hua concluded.

Trump himself posted on Twitter on Thursday that "The New York Times has a new Fake Story that now the Russians and Chinese (glad they finally added China) are listening to all of my calls on cellphones. Except that I rarely use a cellphone, & when I do it's government authorized. I like Hard Lines. Just more made up Fake News!"

Twitter users noted that Trump's post was made from an Apple iPhone.

Trump signed a defense policy act in August that forbids US government agencies from using Huawei and ZTE (another Chinese telecom) products as a "substantial or essential component of any system".

"We urge the US side to discard the outdated cold-war and zero-sum mentality, immediately delete the relevant negative content and uphold rather than disrupt the steady development of the relations between the two countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in July before the bill's passage.

Xinhua contributed to this story.