“During the call, the leaders established a clear sense of mutual respect for one another, and President-elect Trump stated that he believes the two leaders will have one of the strongest relationships for both countries moving forward,” Trump's transition team said in a statement.

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The conversation took place Sunday night on the U.S. East Coast (Monday in Beijing) roughly five days after Trump won the presidential election.

“Facts have shown that cooperation is the only correct choice for the two countries in dealing with their relations,” state news agency Xinhua cited Xi as saying.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the two sides have agreed to maintain close contact, build good relations and work toward a meeting between Xi and Trump “as soon as possible.”

“What I want to point out is that China always maintains close communication with the U.S. side, including Mr. Trump’s team, and we will carry on doing that,” Geng said at a news conference.

Xi also sent Trump a congratulatory message Wednesday, stressing the importance of a “healthy and stable relationship” between the two countries and arguing they “bear the special responsibility of maintaining world peace and stability and boosting global development and prosperity, and share extensive interests,” Xinhua reported.

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Early in his first term, President Obama said the U.S.-China relationship would shape the 21st century, but there is considerable uncertainty about how ties will develop under a Trump presidency.

Despite Trump's complaints about China's trade practices, his real beef during the campaign was with the Obama administration for letting Beijing get away with them. Indeed, he described China's trade negotiators as much smarter than their U.S. counterparts.

Trump's threats to strike back, though, have rankled China's nationalistic press. In an editorial Monday, the Global Times newspaper said a trade war would only hurt U.S. industries, leading to falling iPhone sales, a halt to soybean and maize imports, and Boeing's being replaced by Airbus.

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“Finally the new president will be condemned for his recklessness, ignorance and incompetence and bear all the consequences,” it wrote. “We are very suspicious the trade war scenario is a trap set up by some American media to trip up the new president."

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In China, though, it was hard to tell what ordinary people thought about Trump's apparently cordial call with Xi. Censors disabled the comments section on social media posts by state media about the telephone call.

Although there are concerns about a trade war, Chinese state media and many experts here think Trump will not do much to challenge China’s geopolitical rise. But a recent article by two Trump advisers suggests this could be a miscalculation, arguing that he will actually invest significantly more in the Navy and in guaranteeing Asian security than Obama has.

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Others worry that Trump will turn his back on one of the brightest spots in the relationship between the two countries — cooperation to tackle climate change.

With all this uncertainty in the air, experts argued that it is important that Xi and Trump strike up a relationship early in the new president’s term.

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There was some confusion at the end of last week when some media outlets mistakenly reported Xi's initial telegram as a phone call and then could not understand why Trump had not mentioned any call from the Chinese leader.

But it seems that communications between the two leaders followed a similar pattern to when President Obama first won his first presidential election, in 2008. Then-Chinese President Hu Jintao also sent an initial telegram and followed up with a phone call a few days later.