China watched the run-up to the election between Trump and Hillary Clinton with a sense of unease.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday congratulated Donald Trump on becoming president-elect of the US, calling for cooperation between the top two economies of the world to maintain global peace and stability as well as improving bilateral ties while shunning confrontation.
In his message to Trump, Xi hoped they could work together to boost China-US relations so as to better benefit peoples around the world.
Normally Chinese leaders wait for entire official process of elections to be over to greet world leaders. Xi's greetings came hours after Trump victory over Hillary Clinton.
In his congratulatory message, Xi said that while China is the world's largest developing country and the US the largest developed power, both, as the world's top economies, bear the special responsibility of maintaining world peace and stability and boosting global development and prosperity, and share extensive interests.
To develop a long-term, healthy and stable China-US relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of the peoples of the two countries as well as the general expectations of the global community, Xi said.
"I highly value the relations between China and the United States, and I am looking forward to working together with you to expand China-US cooperation in every field, at the bilateral, regional and global levels, on the basis of the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, with differences controlled in a constructive manner, so as to push China-US relations further forward from a new starting point, better benefiting the peoples of the two countries and other countries," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as saying.
China watched the run-up to the election between Trump and Hillary Clinton with a sense of unease as both promised to pursue strong policies against China.
Generally the Chinese official commentaries reflecting public opinion favoured Trump as Clinton was widely regarded as someone who pursued tough line against China with Asia Pivot strategy under which 60 percent of American military assets would be deployed in the region to contain China.
Strategically, Trump's vision of reorienting ties with allies like China's arch rival Japan and South Korea as well as his pledge to scrap Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) which excluded Beijing suited China. At the same time Beijing is also apprehensive about how Trump's promise of US-centric global development and military development would pan out fuelling the confrontation between the two countries.
Equally there are apprehensions about Trump who branded China a currency manipulator and promised tough measures against cheap Chinese goods into US.
The countries have over USD 600 billion annual trade with balance of trade heavily tilting towards China. Successive US leaders also criticised China for keeping its currency too low against dollar to reap maximum benefit out of the trade.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)