US president-elect Donald Trump has adopted a belligerent tone whenever he talks about China - his equivalent of Pinocchio's nose, perhaps - and his latest bid to tar China with the brush of responsibility for seemingly any and every issue that catches his attention was no exception.

"China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the US in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice!" he tweeted on Monday.

Such accusations are deliberately manipulative, and bode ill for ties between the world's top two economies, each being the other's biggest trading partner.