Experts say China is wary about Bush's missile defense plan.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

BEIJING _ President-elect George W. Bush may be on a collision course with China even before he takes the oath of office.

Unlike President Clinton, Bush and his advisers have argued that China is a competitor, rather than a partner. They have signaled firm support for Taiwan, which China claims as part of its own territory, and have made a top priority of developing a ballistic missile defense system, a plan China strongly opposes.

The appointments of retired Army Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state and Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense have China's leaders worried. "It may be tougher to deal with the U.S," said Zhang Yebai, a senior fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-linked think tank.

Yan Xuetong, executive director of the Institute of International Studies at prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, said U.S.-China relations could become strained beyond mere verbal disagreements.

"In the next four years, I would not rule out a possible military confrontation like in 1996," he said, referring to the incident where the Clinton administration sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Taiwan Strait after China fired missiles into the waters near Taiwanese ports.