Will the real Donald Trump please stand up?

As the inaugural celebrations fade in Washington and the Trump era dawns in earnest, nations across Asia must wake up to the fact that, love him or loathe him, the reality television host formerly known as “The Donald” is now the most powerful man in the world.

But who is the 45th president of the United States of America? Will he be the same man whose anti-China, anti-immigration and anti-globalisation views helped sweep him to one of the most unlikely election victories of modern times? Or will the straitjacket of power and the counsel of advisers moderate his views? Should the wild headlines and signature Twitter outbursts be taken at face value, or is he, to paraphrase some of his closest confidantes, just misunderstood?

With Trump yet to detail the line-up of his foreign policy team, most pundits are still scratching their heads over the likely direction of US foreign policy and particularly US-China ties. In the brave new world of President Trump, uncertainties abound.

Chief among those uncertainties are Trump’s true intentions regarding his provocative comments towards China trade and relations with Taiwan. He has threatened punitive tariffs of up to 45 per cent on China’s exports to the US and suggested the one-China policy – which stipulates Taiwan is part of China – is up for debate.

On both matters, one top surrogate of Trump’s election campaign claims the president may have been misunderstood.

“I have very high confidence that the incoming team has nothing in mind to provoke China,” said Stephen Yates, a former deputy national security adviser to former US vice-president Dick Cheney. “I don’t think [Trump] looks at China under the current leadership and [thinks] ‘just because of who they are I want to attack them’. To me [he] has a purpose and the purpose is America first and it’s about rebalancing our interests.”