Relations between the United States and China are at their lowest point in many decades. What is the outlook for the bilateral relationship over the next four years? Will the new administration in Washington bring change? Will the absence of leadership change in Beijing produce continuity? Individual national leaders can exert considerable agency, but they do not operate in a vacuum. While Donald Trump and Xi Jinping each possess strong-willed personalities and driving ambitions, both will be constrained by domestic pressures, impacted by economic forces, and subjected to external shocks.

Andrew Scobell is concurrently Distinguished Fellow for China at the United States Institute of Peace, adjunct professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University both located in Washington DC. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he earned a doctorate in political science from Columbia University. Previous positions include Donald K. Bren Chair in Non-western Strategic Thought in the Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University and associate professor of international affairs at the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Scobell’s publications include Crossing the Strait: China’s Military Prepares for War with Taiwan (National Defense University Press, 2022); China’s Grand Strategy: Trends, Trajectories and Long-Term Competition (RAND, 2020); China’s Search for Security (Columbia University Press, 2012); China’s Use of Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (Cambridge University Press, 2003).