A Donald Trump presidency does not mean the United States will withdraw from the South China Sea, but rather will continue pursuing "regional hegemony," Chinese academics who drafted a report for an influential government think tank said on Friday.

Ensuring "absolute control" over the South China Sea is the crux of U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific, according to what the authors said was China's first public report on the U.S. military presence in the region, released on Friday in Beijing.

"There will be no overturning change to U.S. policy in the South China Sea," said Wu Shicun, head of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, the influential Hainan-based think tank that wrote the report.