The Trump-Tsai call was a reality check. The most common reaction I have heard in Beijing is a Chinese saying: to give up one’s illusions. It’s increasingly apparent in China that the Trump administration’s vision for the Asia-Pacific will likely mean more strategic pressure, not less. This has been signaled not just on the Taiwan issue, but also in the South China Sea, with Trump’s advisers promising to rebuild the U.S. Navy and repeal defense sequestration, and on North Korea, where Trump has expressed intention to further pressure China in order to make progress on dealing with the nuclear issue.

In the next four years, what do you see as the biggest potential areas of both tension and cooperation in the United States-China relationship?

In my perspective, North Korea is the clearest threat we face in the Asia-Pacific region in the near term. The threat assessment has changed in the past year or two, and there is a growing consensus that this issue will need to be addressed under the next administration through a redoubling of deterrence measures, sanctions and diplomacy. It will be important for the Trump administration to explore whether we can work effectively with China on this issue. If China is unwilling to take necessary steps, the U.S. may need to move forward unilaterally and with allies to put in place more robust sanctions and to strengthen missile defense systems in the region.

This question is connected to how we assess the Trump-Tsai phone call. If we consider dealing with the threat of North Korean or Iranian nuclear proliferation as top national security threats facing the United States, we need to account for whether or not China’s cooperation would be important in achieving those objectives as we outline our strategy in Asia. In that context, it’s hard to understand how it would make strategic sense that the Tsai call would be the first thing the Trump administration would seek to do as it builds a strategy that is tied to broader U.S. regional interests and objectives.

What advice would you give Trump on how to handle the relationship?

While we need to compete with China and deal firmly in areas where we disagree or feel that U.S. interests are being undermined, there are many issues in the world tied to U.S. interests that come back to whether or not the U.S. and China can work together.

From that standpoint, it will be very important for President-elect Trump to meet early on with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and to build a personal relationship with him.