Donald Trump’s words on the campaign trail suggest that Sino-US relations may fluctuate in the transition period. The balance of power between the two sides will continue to change but the importance and sensitivity of Sino-US relations will also increase.

It is very difficult to predict Donald Trump’s policy, especially his foreign policy. The president-elect never systematically elaborated it. His speeches

Policies outlive presidents’ terms because they are in America’s own interests. Trump’s personal style has proved to work well in appealing to voters he needed to get him elected this year. But it will not work that well in appealing to the world when he is in the White House. We must hope that he works to grasp the subtleties of international relations more quickly than his spontaneous style suggests is likely.

State Department says that the U.S. remains firmly committed to the “one China” policy, and that’s based on the three joint communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act and there’s been no change in U.S.'s longstanding policy with regard to Taiwan.

While the president-elect’s rhetoric suggests an isolationist turn, the reshaping of the US political landscape and Trump’s pragmatic, businesslike approach to decision-making suggest that his policies still defy easy prediction. Demanding that subordinates be highly loyal and obedient, he can be unscrupulous in order to achieve his goals, but at the same time does not lack flexibility in tactics.

The U.S.-China relationship is complex and often fraught, but getting it right is possibly the most important economic and foreign policy task of any President. The pathway to a more advantageous U.S. economic relationship with China will not be easily forged, but it is vital to the American economy. As China’s President Xi Jinping told Trump recently, a cooperative U.S.-China relationship is the only pathway forward.

The U.S. has long used dialogue to prod China to act in a manner supportive of global norms and institutions. In 2005, then Undersecretary of State Robert Zoellick gave a speech where he called on China to start acting as a responsible stakeholder of the global governance regime. Some eleven years later, the lectured became the lecturer. Rather than the U.S. lecturing China, China is calling on the U.S. to act responsibly in relation to global trade and climate norms.

While the president-elect’s background might suggest a more commercial approach to world affairs, he is likely to preserve the US’ unchallengeable military advantages and strategic dominance – including some form of the “pivot to Asia”.

The relationship between the two countries is between two societies, not merely between governments or leaders, and that broad spectrum gives it long-term viability. Elevating our shared strategic gaze to the global level will be difficult, but it is essential.

Donald Trump’s unabashed pandering to an aggrieved white voter base as well as the long-standing consistency of his (much less-noticed) anti-trade convictions bear implications for Washington’s China policy. As the disillusioned, blue-collar nativist element within slowly defects from a party that remains bound and determined to cater to the interests of its 1% backers, including under the incoming Trump Administration, U.S. politics will enter a period of flux.