Trump showed strength across broad swathes of America, earning a bigger share of the vote nationwide than he did four years ago, ballots showed.
Chinese strategists said while they expected more fiery rhetoric and potentially crippling tariffs from Trump, his isolationist foreign policy could give Beijing a vacuum to expand its global influence.
"Beijing anticipated a close race in the US election," said Tong Zhao, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Donald Trump's win is expected to pose a challenge for Chinese President Xi Jinping. (AP PHOTO)
"Although Trump's victory is not China's preferred outcome and raises concerns, it is not entirely unexpected.
"The Chinese leadership will likely strive to maintain an appearance of a cordial personal relationship with Trump while intensifying efforts to project China's power and strength."
Da Wei, director of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said Trump's victory "may pose a relatively large challenge to Sino-US relations" based on his campaign policy proposals and actions in his previous term.
"Due to Trump's high unpredictability, I think it is difficult for China to say that there is a fully formed plan to do "x" when Trump comes to power.
"It also depends on what policies the Trump administration implements."
Trump has proposed tariffs on Chinese imports of more than 60 per cent and ending China's most-favoured-nation trading status.
Analysts say the prospect of a trade war has rattled China's leadership.
China sells goods worth more than $US400 billion ($A607 billion) annually to the US and hundreds of billions more in components for products Americans buy from elsewhere.
"Beijing is particularly wary of a potential revival of the trade war under Trump, especially as China currently faces significant internal economic challenges," Zhao said.
"China also expects Trump to accelerate the decoupling of technologies and supply chains, a move that could threaten China's economic growth and indirectly impact its social and political stability."
In response, China is likely to intensify its push for greater technological and economic self-sufficiency, while feeling more pressure to bolster economic ties with countries like Russia, he said.
"Going forward, Beijing would likely be drawing up a list of clear bargains and interest trade-offs that it could float with Washington, in hope that it can focus on its much-needed domestic economic concerns whilst Trump's attention is occupied elsewhere," said Brian Wong, assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong who studies grand strategy.
China is likely to shore up ties with the Global South, Europe and northeast Asian countries in the event of a Trump win, given his "transactional, isolationist, anti-globalist and anti-multilateral foreign policy", Wong said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached a rare rapprochement in October, while Beijing has tentatively reached out to the new Japanese administration following years of strained relations.
"China expects the second Trump administration to further disengage from international agreements and commitments, creating opportunities for China to expand its influence in emerging power vacuums," Zhao said.
Trump has unnerved democratically governed Taiwan by saying it should pay Washington for its defence and that it had taken US semiconductor business.
"The Biden administration applied high-pressure tactics to China on Taiwan, with US troops stationed in Taiwan and even giving weapons to Taiwan ... in a huge break with the former Trump administration's Taiwan policy," said Shen Dingli, an international relations scholar in Shanghai.
Washington approved a $US2 billion arms sale to Taiwan in October.
"Trump is not too likely to give Taiwan the same support in future."
