A Chinese diplomat tweeted a joke about Huawei dominating Apple - from his iPhone

Reuters

A Chinese diplomat made fun of the US government's blacklisting of Huawei on Twitter.

• A Chinese diplomat made fun of Huawei's dominant market position over Apple with a jokey tweet about the company's logo.
• The tweet follows the Trump administration's blacklisting of Huawei last week.
• But the jibe backfired somewhat when it was pointed that it was tweeted from an iPhone.
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As the tensions reach fever pitch between Huawei and the US government, one Chinese diplomat tweeted a joke about Huawei's biggest US competitor, Apple.

The fight between the Trump administration and Huawei escalated last week when an executive order led the Department of Commerce to blacklist the company. Huawei was later granted a brief reprieve in the form of a 90 day license.

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Read more: Huawei has been blacklisted by the US government. Here's what happened to the last Chinese tech company that got the 'death penalty.'

China's ambassador to Pakistan, Lijian Zhao, tweeted a joke on Monday about Trump's executive order. "Look at the logo of Huawei. It has cut APPLE into pieces…" He included a photo of a cut-up Apple for comparison:

Huawei is currently the second-largest smartphone producer in the world, despite being essentially locked out of the US market. Apple is the third-largest, and was overtaken by Huawei in March, according to International Data Corp.

This isn't the first time the logos have been compared. 9 to 5 Mac reports that the joke has become a feature of the "boycott Apple" movement in China.

But the joke backfired somewhat when people pointed out that the tweet appears to have been sent from an iPhone, as when viewed in Tweetdeck it displays "Twitter for iPhone."

This isn't the first time a Huawei fan has tweeted support for the company from an iPhone. In January, two Huawei employees were demoted and had their pay docked for tweeting a New Years' greeting from the official company account on an iPhone.

Huawei's leadership also doesn't seem adverse to using Apple products. CFO Meng Wanzhou was carrying a bunch of Apple devices when she was arrested in December, and CEO Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state television this week that he admires the company and buys iPhones for his family when abroad.