President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters before a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., U.S., Dec. 31, 2024. AP-Yonhap

Washington's duplicity in its China policy and the looming chaos in American politics could push Sino-American ties into high-risk territory during Donald Trump's second stint in the White House, a Chinese foreign policy expert has warned.

Although U.S.-China ties are entering a high-risk period, Beijing will remain hopeful about "win-win cooperation" and peaceful coexistence, according to Shen Yamei, director of the Institute of American Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, a government-linked think tank in Beijing.

In a commentary last week, Shen spoke highly of the U.S.-China detente following an eventful year, especially amid concerns among China watchers that Washington might cause China-U.S. relations to deteriorate during the election year.

"However, the contradiction between China and the United States is structural, while the stability currently restored to the relationship is not," she wrote in the biweekly journal World Affairs, which is published by a press controlled by the Chinese foreign ministry.

"As the U.S. locks in its strategy of great power competition, China-U.S. ties still face enormous challenges."

She credited outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden's administration for adjusting its tactics from "intense competition" to "managing competition," which helped stabilize ties by reopening "more than 20 communication mechanisms."

But Washington's focus on countering China by promoting its Indo-Pacific strategy and forging ideological, economic and technological alliances clearly aimed at Beijing have laid bare its containment strategy, according to Shen.

"The U.S. has used selective cooperation in 'low politics' fields like the humanities and climate change to manage competition in 'high politics' areas like the economy, technology and geopolitics," Shen said.

At the same time, Washington had used "verbal statements on the Taiwan issue to manage tensions caused by escalating U.S.-Taiwan collusion, essentially using competition and confrontation as real moves, and management and cooperation as superficial moves," she added.

"This duplicity and utilitarianism in its China policy have been strengthened," she said.

Shen went on to blame Washington for its failure to "clarify the nature, goals, content, boundaries, and endgame of its competition strategy with China" and for its frequent "contradictory" messages, which she said prompted questions and doubts about its China policy.

With Trump's imminent return to the White House, she said the biggest uncertainty in future bilateral relations would stem from U.S. domestic politics.

"American politics is undergoing profound changes. Deep-seated conflicts such as economic inequality, racial conflicts, and culture wars are becoming more acute, and social trends are becoming more conservative," she said.

"Diplomatically, the new Trump administration will put more emphasis on 'America first' and be more unilateral and economically nationalistic ... which may push Sino-U.S. relations into a new high-risk period."

Despite anticipating bumpy ties ahead, Shen said China would take a long-term view of bilateral relations, improving its own strength while "adhering to win-win cooperation" with the U.S., rather than playing zero-sum games and taking a lead role in global governance.

Following Trump's election victory last month, Chinese scholars and officials were generally pessimistic about the future of Sino-American ties despite stabilization earlier this year.

China's top diplomat Wang Yi last week called on the incoming Trump administration to "make the right choice and work with China in the same direction to avoid disruptions" amid what he described as "a world of turbulence and conflicts."

China President Xi Jinping, center, greets the audience at the swearing-in ceremony of the new chief executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region at the Dome in Cotai, Macau, China, Dec. 20, 2024. EPA-Yonhap

Chinese President Xi Jinping also delivered a message for Trump during a meeting with Biden in Lima, Peru last month, just days after the U.S. presidential election.

"China is ready to engage in dialogue, expand cooperation, and manage differences with the U.S. to sustain the hard-won momentum towards stability" in bilateral ties, Xi said.

Pang Zhongying, chair professor in international political economy at Sichuan University in Chengdu, said an inadequate understanding of American politics may hamper Beijing's efforts to seek better ties with the Trump administration.

"It is unfortunate but true that most of us do not understand American politics well enough to grasp Trump's rise and his return," he said.

Although Beijing has had some experience dealing with the first Trump administration and has closely followed his return to power, it remained unclear if this would put China in a better position to cope with the imminent challenges, he said.

Read the full storyat SCMP.