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MARK KAUZLARICH/Reuters

The provocative call between Donald Trump and the president of Taiwan has raised hopes across Asia that the next leader of the United States will toss out decades of deference to Beijing and instead take a hard line with a nation often accused by its neighbours of bullying.

But in China, the president-elect's willingness to dispense with nearly four decades of studious separation and speak directly with Tsai Ing-wen sparked new anger.

No other issue between the two countries is more sensitive than Taiwan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday. China lodged a complaint with the U.S. over the weekend, as it became clear that the phone call was weeks in the making, rather than a spur-of-the-moment congratulatory chat.

Related: Trump breaks 40-year policy, speaks with Taiwan president

"This phone call has broken all the precedents, all the commitments, all the understandings and all the caring about the One China policy between China and the U.S.," said Victor Gao, director of the China National Association of International Studies. "We urge Mr. Trump to really sober up and learn as much as he can, and as quickly as he can."

Mr. Trump may be leaning toward Taiwan as a tactic to seek additional leverage against Beijing. But to undermine China's insistence that Taiwan is part of its indivisible territory "will be really risking peace and stability – not only in our part of the world, but will be risking peace and stability on a global stage," Mr. Gao added. "Neither China nor the United States should go in that direction."

Before his inauguration, Mr. Trump's comments can be disregarded as the musings of a "private citizen," added Shen Dingli, deputy dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University. "But if he will continue to term Taiwan's leader as 'president' after Jan. 20, 2017, the danger is a cutoff of the China-U.S. official relationship."

China initially responded with calm to Mr. Trump's Friday conversation with Ms. Tsai. Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday called it a "little trick" and faulted Taiwan.

Mr. Trump, however, showed no sign of backing down, taking to Twitter over the weekend to warn that he was unwilling to take his instructions from Beijing.

"Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!" he wrote.

Under the terms of a decades-old consensus, China and Taiwan have long agreed that there is only "One China," which both sides claim to rule. Taiwan is a self-governing region that is diplomatically recognized by a small number of countries. Most, however – including the U.S. and Canada – have no formal relations with Taipei, relying instead on quasi-embassies and complicated diplomatic language. Canada has merely agreed to "take note" of the fact that Beijing claims Taiwan as "an inalienable part" of its territory.

Taiwan, meanwhile, has a robust democratic system that elects its own leadership and manages its own affairs, presiding over a region larger, more populous and more wealthy than many other places widely recognized as independent nations.

Mr. Trump has surrounded himself by people who appear willing to challenge long-standing conventions about how other nations relate to Taiwan. One is economist Peter Navarro, who in a recent Foreign Policy article called Taiwan "perhaps the most militarily vulnerable U.S. partner anywhere in the world," and complained that it has been "repeatedly denied the type of comprehensive arms deal it needs to deter China's covetous gaze."

Another is Stephen Yates, a former missionary in Taiwan and national security official in the George W. Bush administration, who helped to draft a change to the Republican Party foreign policy platform this year that says, "We salute the people of Taiwan."

In an online article published Sunday, he downplayed Mr. Trump's call to Ms. Tsai: "If a little courtesy to a democratic friend and a little truth about Taiwan could really threaten peace in the Pacific, as the experts contend, then we need to re-evaluate our defense and come up with something better."

Mr. Yates is coming to Taiwan this week, saying his intention is to do business there. "Should be an interesting week," he wrote on Facebook.

But he is also expected to see Taiwanese leaders, local media have reported, which in China is likely to further raise suspicions about the degree to which an incoming American president has surrounded himself by people open to reconsidering the American posture with Taiwan.

That prospect has prompted cheers among countries hopeful "that Trump is willing to go tough on China and side with smaller countries," said Richard Heydarian, assistant professor of political science at De La Salle University in Manila.

"For many people, this is a huge and welcome departure from the Obama and [U.S. National Security Advisor] Susan Rice approach of always maintaining a stable relationship with China."

In Malaysia, too, observers see "a possibility that Trump might be willing to stand up to China. …Time for a little pushback," said Shahriman Lockman, senior analyst at Malaysia's Institute of Strategic and International Studies. But, he added, it "mostly confirms the notion that Mr. Trump is potentially reckless."

Indeed, a "growing anxiety" is spreading across the region, amid a dawning dread of what unexpected move might come next from Mr. Trump, said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University. "We've gone from a fairly predictable American foreign policy in Asia to an unpredictable situation. I think people are in the wait and see."

Ultimately, though, Prof. Kingston believes China is likely to prevail: Faced with the consequences of infuriating Beijing, and the trade and security convulsions that would create, Mr. Trump is likely to back down.

"Overall, if you look at U.S. interests, it's hard to imagine that a pragmatic Mr. Trump is going to suddenly shift policy vis-à-vis China and Taiwan dramatically," he said. The phone call with Ms. Tsai "is just something that happened and I think it sends a message. But I wouldn't read too much into it as a significant shift."

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