China is "not dreading" Donald Trump's return to the White House and might actually benefit in several ways despite fears of "rockier" times ahead, a noted Chinese political scientist has said.

How the rivalry turns out will depend on reforms at home and whether China can "do a better job" of it, according to Yan Xuetong, dean of the institute of international relations at Tsinghua University.

This would also determine whether China could narrow the "power gap" with the United States, Yan wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs on Friday.

The relationship was going to "get rockier" over the next four years, Yan warned, with the US president-elect's rhetoric and cabinet choices showing a resolve to double down on the hardline approach towards China seen during his first term in office.

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Still, China had "learned a great deal" from his first stint, giving it the confidence to face any tensions during the second Trump administration, Yan argued, while all but ruling out the likelihood of a military clash.

"[Trump] will soon arrive in the White House with the intention of containing China, but Chinese leaders are not dreading his return," he wrote.

With less than a month to go for Trump's inauguration on January 20, China-US relations are widely expected to enter a new period of uncertainty. Much of the rest of the world is also bracing for the return of Trump and his "America first" agenda to the Oval Office.

Yan said that while Trump was likely to push harder for wider trade decoupling with China, including drastic cuts in access to US markets, Beijing was "likely to retaliate".

"The tit-for-tat dynamic may drive the simmering trade war between the two powers to a new peak, with damaging consequences for the global economy as many other countries scramble to adopt protectionist policies of their own."

Trump said on the campaign trail that he would impose tariff increases of 60 per cent or more on goods imported from China.

Following his victory last month, he pledged that one of his first acts in office would be to impose an extra 10 per cent tariff on goods from China and a 25 per cent tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico.

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned earlier this month that "there will be no winner" in a tariff or tech war between China and the US, and vowed that Beijing would firmly safeguard its interests.

The new US administration was also likely to ramp up military pressure on Beijing, especially when it came to the South China Sea and Taiwan, Yan noted.

It would "hardly be surprising" if Trump or his officials provoked a crisis similar to that which followed then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in 2022, he warned. Pelosi's visit prompted a furious Beijing to suspend a range of US exchanges, with the ice only breaking after a presidential summit in November last year.

However, Yan also said he expected Trump to seek to avoid overt conflict with China and focus on domestic matters instead.

At the same time, Beijing was not about to draw up a timetable for reunification with Taiwan as it was concerned mainly with economic growth, he added.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. The US, like most countries, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

"In practice, a Trump presidency may benefit China in several ways," Yan wrote.

Trump's relative disinterest in ideological issues might take the edge of the US-China rivalry, he suggested. "Economic and strategic conflicts may increase between Beijing and Washington during Trump's second term, but they will not escalate into ideological conflicts that place the two states on a direct collision course."

Also, Trump's "political isolationism" might lead the US to reduce its stake in protecting traditional allies, Yan forecast.

He said this would drive those states - both in Europe and East Asia - to hedge their bets between the US and China to offset the unpredictability of the Trump White House.

If Trump were to cut military aid to Ukraine, US allies in Europe seeking to shore up their economies to better support Kyiv might become "more forthright hedgers", giving China "fresh opportunities" to build ties with those countries, Yan said.

However, he added that reforms were key. "Although Trump's isolationism certainly creates opportunities for Beijing to improve its relations with US allies, reforms at home will really determine the course of the competition between the two powers," he wrote.

Other Chinese analysts have also warned that the biggest risk to Beijing during Trump 2.0 would be US government overhauls driven by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Yan said that if Chinese leaders did a better job than Trump of implementing domestic reforms in the next four years, the power gap with the US could be narrowed.

"But if Trump does a better job than China in this aspect - and eschews damaging foreign conflicts and entanglements - the power gap ... will get bigger," he warned.

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