To better signal that the U.S. has not backed away from its role as an Asia-Pacific nation amid China's rise, President Donald Trump and his senior advisers should visit U.S. ally Japan as soon as possible, according to a new report by an expert task force detailing China policy recommendations for the new administration.

Written by a group of U.S. experts convened by the Asia Society and the University of California, San Diego — including former officials who have served both Democratic and Republican administrations — the report, released Tuesday, arrived sandwiched between the high-profile visit to Tokyo last week of U.S. defense chief James Mattis and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's summit talks with Trump in the United States starting Thursday.

It said that Sino-U.S. ties stand at a "precarious crossroads" amid growing tensions between the two powers over maritime disputes that could send the rivals on a "collision course."

"China's assertive actions in its maritime disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea raise serious concerns about the region's future stability," the report said. "The result is a growing strategic rivalry between the United States and China that risks being further enflamed by a volatile mix of long-standing Chinese claims of sovereignty excited by domestic nationalism that could lead to a dangerous collision course."

The report lays out several approaches to improving Sino-U.S. ties and preventing the outbreak of conflict, including the promotion by Washington of a more stabilized relationship between Beijing and Tokyo.

"Because no durable peace in Asia is possible without a modicum of cooperation between China and Japan, it is essential that these two Asian powers establish a more regular, high-level, trilateral dialogue with the United States to promote the stabilization of Chinese-Japanese relations," the report recommended.

Relations between the two have grown frosty over the last several months amid ramped up and provocative Chinese military moves in waters and airspace near Japan. These moves have included a series of close calls involving Japanese Self-Defense Force aircraft as well as Beijing's deployment of its sole aircraft carrier into the Western Pacific for the first time via the waterway between Okinawa and Miyako Island in December.

The report also reaffirms the need for a forward U.S. military presence in the region, including the necessity of spreading American forces throughout more locations.

"The Trump administration should consider reconfiguring it along the lines of an active denial strategy," it said. "Active denial means maintaining a forward presence in East Asia that is designed to deny an opponent the benefits of military aggression, especially the prospect of a quick victory."

It said the first component of such a strategy would be a resilient force posture, which it said could be achieved by exploiting the size and depth of the region to distribute units in more locations, thereby increasing the number of targets an adversary would need to attack to win any conflict.

"In allied countries such as Japan, for example, this would mean dispersing air units to more locations within the country rather than concentrating them in a few large but vulnerable bases," the report said. "Such resiliency will enable U.S. forces to absorb an initial attack while maintaining the ability to counterattack."

And while Mattis and newly minted U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have both confirmed that Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. security treaty covers the Japanese-administered, Chinese-claimed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, the report recommends a longer-term approach to dealing with the issue.

It said that the Trump administration "should create a context conducive to China and Japan peacefully resolving" the dispute over the islands, known in China as the Diaoyus, by urging China to halt moves to unilaterally "alter the status quo through provocative naval and air operations."

"At the same time, the United States should encourage Japan to continue its policy of not building infrastructure or installations on the islands," it added.

On North Korea, the report said that the hermit nation's nuclear and missile threat should be the Trump's "highest priority in Northeast Asia."

It said Trump should communicate immediately and directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping to call for the establishment of a special high-level channel dedicated to jointly resolving the problem.

"The new president should explain that unless the United States and China can find a more effective way to work together to reduce the North Korean threat, then the United States, South Korea, and Japan will together take any and all measures necessary to deter North Korea and defend themselves against possible attack or provocation."

Such measures could include the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile-defense system to Japan — an option that Japan has said it is considering.

The system is due to be deployed to South Korea sometime before the end of this year as a means of countering growing threats from the North, which carried out a spate of missile tests and conducted two nuclear explosions last year.

Beijing has condemned the THAAD plan, saying the system's X-band radar can peer into its territory. Media reports have cited Chinese officials as saying that the true purpose for the deployment is to track missiles launched from China.