Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff attempted to assure Americans that his boss would not seek to change the US’s "one China" policy.

Mr Trump walked a hugely sensitive tightrope last week when he said he would reconsider the policy of considering Taiwan as part of China, but Reince Priebus quickly acted to quell any fall-out with Beijing.

"We are not suggesting that we're revisiting 'one China' policy right now," he said on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

"He is not president right now and he's respectful to the current president."

The one China policy has been in place since 1979 and is a bedrock for Chinese foreign policy and international trade.

The previous week, Mr Trump told the same program: "I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade."

He accepted a call from the Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen to congratulate him on winning the election - a convention that is unheard of among recent US presidents.

In another recent unprecedented move, China stole a US underwater drone off the coast of the Philippines. Mr Trump tweeted that China should keep the drone, even though China had already vowed to give it back.

Mr Priebus’ comments on Fox News were the first official actions of the Trump team to improve relations between the two countries before the president-elect steps into the White House.

Yet the incoming chief of staff said Mr Trump’s comments on the drone were not provocative and that “80 per cent” of Americans agreed it was inappropriate for China to have taken the drone.