Donald Trump's election as the president of the United States has sparked a debate over climate change amid the just-concluded United Nations climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco, mainly because given his reputation as a climate change denier, he could put the Paris Agreement in jeopardy.

Many see this as an "window of opportunity" for the European Union and China to move closer in the global fight against climate change, while others emphasize the need to strengthen global climate governance. And the media have highlighted what Trump tweeted in 2012: "The concept of global warming hoax was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."

However, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, corrected Trump's view at the Marrakech climate conference, by emphasizing that climate change is not a hoax invented by China, because the UN climate negotiations were initially driven with the support of Trump's fellow Republicans during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush at a time when Beijing was learning how to integrate into the world economy. It was only later that China became a major player in the global fight against climate change.