Friction between the United States and China continues to escalate as they continuously fail to come to a trade agreement. The Trump Administration continues to put pressure on China, increasing supervision on their tech companies and tariffs on their exported commodities. Additionally, the United States has been pushing their allies to boycott Chinese exports specifically from Huawei, a Chinese multinational corporation. The United States even tried to extradite Huawei’s Chief Financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, to the United States from Canada. This has only exacerbated the tension between the two world powers.
The United States sanctions and tariffs have caused economic disturbances in many East Asian countries that are a part of China’s supply chain. This will most likely lead to slowed economic growth.
That being said, some Asian countries are seeking to benefit from these trouble relations between China and the United States. This will benefit the growth of intra-regional trade.
If the United States and China cannot reach an agreement, East Asian countries will be forced to choose sides. This would cause countries to reduce dependency on either China or the United States in favor of the other power.
In regards to national security, this trade conflict could force the United States to focus billions of dollars on defending their East Asian allies from Chinese encroachment. In regards to countries like South Korea, and Japan, these are the most important to defend. Recently, China has been making claims that they are planning to regain control of Taiwan, and it is dubious on whether or not the United States would come to their aid, since the US is an unofficial ally of the Republic of China.
These issues between the United States and China are incredibly complex and there is no simple fix. With the Presidential campaign trail beginning again in 2019, Donald Trump will be actively focused on reelection. If he is reelected, then he will have more time to focus on trade agreements with China.