Will Trump 2.0 be bad or not so bad - for China?

US President-elect Donald Trump will be tougher on China when he returns to the White House, compared with his first term, but experts at a forum organised by The Straits Times say it may not be all doom and gloom.

- Yew Lun Tian

"Whether it's trade, diplomacy, security, I expect Trump to take a more hardline, competitive, confrontational approach towards China," said Mr Blake Berger, a consultant at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a US-based think tank.

Speaking at a panel discussion on US-China relations at the ST Asia Future Summit in Singapore on Nov 12, Mr Berger said Trump, who has just won a second term as US president, had proven to be "transactional, unpredictable, unilateral" in his first presidential term between 2017 and 2021.

Now that Trump has decided to pick his next administration team based on loyalty rather than expertise, people like former US chief of staff John Kelly will not be around to serve as "guard rails" to rein him in, Mr Berger said.

US media reported on Nov 12 that Trump has picked China critics Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz for the respective roles of secretary of state and national security adviser.

Mr Berger said he expects former US trade representative Robert Lighthizer, if given a role in the administration, to "march towards economic decoupling" with China.