A Joe Biden presidency may not mean an instant thaw in US-China relations, but a more predictable policy approach than under the Trump administration should be better for investment, investors told a Reuters summit.

The US president-elect has already said he will not immediately cancel the trade agreement that President Donald Trump struck with China or take steps to remove tariffs on Chinese exports.

Many of the same issues that stoked friction between the two world powers under Trump's presidency will fester, such as protecting intellectual property and US manufacturing jobs, said Shannon Saccocia, chief investment officer of Boston Private.

"Whether it's a Trump administration part two or a Biden administration, those concerns remain the same, and we have a very split electorate here in the United States and those voters sit at the nexus, at that tipping point," Saccocia said at the annual Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit, 2021.

 "In order to continue to engage those not only in 2020, as we've seen, but in the mid-terms in 2022 and into 2024, you can't lose that block as they've increasingly become the deciding factor in US elections."

Under the Phase 1 agreement signed this year, China agreed to increase purchases of US products and services by at least $200 billion over 2020 and 2021.

The deal also left in place 25 per cent tariffs on a $250-billion array of Chinese industrial goods and components used by US manufacturers, and China's retaliatory levies on more than $100 billion in US goods.

Biden's administration is likely to focus on trying to create a coalition of like-minded democracies, including Europe and north Asian and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in some of its policy approach to China, said Krishna Guha, vice chairman, Evercore ISI.

"We will see robust efforts to confront China on some of the geopolitical issues, some of which like human rights are more important to the incoming team than they are to the outgoing team," he said.

"As an investor net, this looks like a better way of handling these issues going forward, so there are some interesting opportunities here, but I don't think anyone should expect smooth sailing."