Barack Obama will inherit a raft of problems, but he won't have to worry about China itching to challenge America's global economic and political dominance.
The US is in recession while China's economy recently became the world's third largest. But the message from a debate brewing in Beijing is clear - China must avoid both complacency and confrontation in handling Washington.
Two Beijing sources who demanded anonymity to discuss internal matters said President Hu Jintao privately told officials last year the US may be beset by woes but remains the undisputed global "hegemon", a superpower whose overall economic, political and military might China would be reckless to challenge.
"Mr Hu's message was that we can't take for granted that China will come through the financial crisis anywhere near to challenging the US," said one of the sources, an editor, citing discussions with officials.
The other source was a state think-tank scholar, also citing a discussion with an official who had been told of Mr Hu's remarks.
Chinese warnings that the country must not court confrontation with the US are not new.
But there is growing discussion in Beijing over how its foreign policy should respond to the economic turmoil, and such reminders appear intended to deter excessive ambitions, said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"I think this debate is probably also taking place in some form at high levels," said Mr Glaser, who has followed the recent discussions. "The debate is about finding the right balance between caution and assertiveness."
In this debate, some say Beijing should seize opportunities to win international standing by playing a bigger role in international economic negotiations and traditional security, while others urge quiet prudence, said Zhang Jianjing, a Beijing journalist who writes about foreign policy.
"There are some here who believe that China's era has arrived, but many others say China's own problems mean it has to keep biding its time and reserving its strengths," said Mr Zhang, using a traditional phrase (tao guang yang hui) that has long been a catchphrase for a low-key foreign policy.
"But China's attitude is quite contradictory. Even those who want China to become more active know that the US is far from collapsed and China is far from global mastery."
China is also worried by an economic slowdown, growing unemployment and the threat of unrest.
Yet if the country can grow and stay stable while others shrink or stagnate, Chinese experts say, their nation's relative economic and diplomatic weight will rise faster than previously anticipated, bringing opportunities and worries.
China last week gave revised upward growth estimates for 2007, leapfrogging Germany to become the world's third-largest economy. The US and Japan are both still much bigger. Officials say the Chinese economy can grow eight per cent this year, slower than in past years, but robust compared to the negative or negligible numbers of most developed states, including Japan.
Factbox
Major foreign policy challenges for China
The US
Beijing's dealings with new Presidents in Washington have often been troubled, and some fear the same under Barack Obama.
Many Beijing experts believe trade disputes could be the focus of contention with Washington. But most also believe friction over China's trade surplus will be held in check by economic inter-dependence between the two powers and by US preoccupation with other concerns.
Japan and North Korea
Two of China's touchiest diplomatic challenges are in its own neighbourhood.
Beijing and Tokyo have forged a striking improvement in ties since 2006. But mutual distrust still runs deep, and recently the two sides have again been at odds over Chinese drilling for undersea gas reserves, which Japan says could drain beds under East China Sea waters that it claims.
Japan and other regional powers are also likely to look to China to pressure its neighbour and long-time partner North Korea over its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions have stalled. North Korea has issued threats to South Korea and last week told a visiting US scholar that it has "weaponised" enough plutonium for four to five nuclear weapons.
The EU
China's relations with the EU are strained after Beijing abruptly pulled out of a summit between the two sides that was scheduled for December. China was enraged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.
France has now handed the six-monthly rotating presidency to the Czech Republic, to be followed by Sweden in the second half of the year. Czech officials have indicated they have no plans to meet the Dalai Lama in coming months, easing possible antagonism with Beijing over that issue. But trade frictions and mutual frustrations over cumbersome decision-making are likely to continue frustrating relations between Beijing and Brussels.