They are just getting into this whole "smack talk" idea

You'd think China could learn a thing or two from North Korea, but trash talking from the late 1940s is I guess all they had left from the Chang-era.

Britain is an "old, declining empire" which resorts to "eccentric acts" to hide its embarrassment over its declining power, an official Chinese newspaper has claimed on the second day of a visit by the country's premier, Li Keqiang, to London.

Invalid on present-tense usage alone. Who's advising them, Karl Rove and his Sweden-slams?

British Prime Minister then replied in the most stereotypical way possible.

...if you're David Cameron, this is when you use the international hotbed of a card that is Downton Abbey... He gave Chinese premier Li Keqiang a copy of the script for the show's first episode signed by creator Julian Fellowes.

Yeah, that'll show 'em Britain's not an old, declining empire.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]