China has presented problems for awhile. IP theft, opaque markets for foreign companies to work in, the South China Sea, etc.

Obama was using US soft power, in extending the TPP started under Bush, as well as naval freedom of navigation exercises, with Asian-Pacific nations almost universally supportive. The whole idea was getting China to pivot from being an insular export driven economy, to emerging as a major power operating more within international norms. The progress was slow, but steady, and many nations joined the TPP, as China protested.

Trump has taken a much more aggressive approach, of course. We're out of the TPP, and engaged in a tariff war with the Chinese, with both sides issuing bellicose threats.

How the Asian-Pacific nations see things is an interesting barometer of how Trump's approach is being viewed, and more broadly, how that part of the world is reacting to both China's rise and under Trump, America's changing leadership "style" and perceived withdrawal from the international community. (Paris, TPP, animosity toward NATO and the EU, etc.)

Specifically around the Huawei issue, it looks like nations in the area are resisting the Trump hardline, but they're also being cautious about how to avoid being subject to China's security apparatus as irresistible 5G technology and pricing are making it very tough to ignore.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-kneecap-china

For the past year there has been discussion about "de-coupling" the US & Chinese economies. With the Huawei issue now clearly a potential catalyst, the US is trying to get other nations to pick sides, and may extend that to economic ties, in general. The problem with this is the Chinese economy is far more integrated with other economies in the Asian-Pac region: Japan, Australia, Indonesia, increasingly even India. When the US tariffs went up against China, the Chinese dropped their tariffs with a broad range of countries, especially their neighbors.

Prodding other nations to choose sides in an economic de-coupling may very well backfire on the US:
https://www.axios.com/us-and-chinese...c1af9f92a.html


Trump's trade war in fact is entrenching China further in other Asian economies. The integration of the rest of Asia "with China is accelerating,"


John Bolton citing the Monroe Doctrine in trying to ouster Maduro in Venezuela is spectacularly ignorant of the existing and growing Chinese presence in Latin America, where crucial infrastructure development is helping those nations' economies substantially. Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Brazil, Ecuador are just the ones who come to mind.

As we've been ignoring our back yard, antagonizing both of our immediate neighbors, Central American nations and Caribbean "s-hole" countries, China has been quietly cultivating ties and improving the economies of nations in our neighborhood.

We live in a fascinating time.