I don’t have a dog in this fight either way, but the us doesn’t seem particularly interested in defending our allies anywhere right now, so I imagine that China is going to start flexing its muscles in more and more obvious ways. I think even if you think trump is an anomoly, America is tiring of maintaining the post WWII order, and China is only just ramping up its interest in expanding its sphere of influence.
Russian interference in US elections has made a lot of Americans more hostile to autocracies. The effect varies in strength with political affiliation, and different groups within the country have held different levels of animus to autocracy over decades. But there is a base level of fundamental conflict between liberal society and illiberal society that never goes away.
