But he also drew a hard line on China’s concerns, urging Mr. Trump to handle the status of Taiwan with prudence. In 2016, Mr. Trump took a call from Tsai Ing-wen, who was then Taiwan’s president, drawing China’s condemnation.
Already, though, some of Mr. Trump’s decisions are playing into China’s broader global ambition of reshaping the global order to give Beijing a bigger say. Mr. Trump’s moves to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement, a U.N. climate pact, and his willingness to alienate partners like Mexico and Canada with 25 percent tariffs, arguably serve China’s longer-term interests.
Still, Chinese analysts said Beijing was proceeding with immense caution. They feel China was burned at the start of Mr. Trump’s first term, when he turned on the charm, inviting Mr. Xi to Mar-a-Lago where they dined on cake. A year later, the relationship began its steady dive to the worst level since diplomatic relations were normalized in the 1970s.
Mr. Trump “wants to try to solve problems in a nonconfrontational way at first, but he will definitely bargain for more, so we must also be mentally prepared,” said Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Siyi Zhao contributed research.
