A recent Washington, DC, conference on 'US. trade policy in 2010" was attended by many US trade officials, foreign trade officials, trade lawyers and lobbyists. Other than brief speculation of the Obama administration's weakening leadership in the trade sector as a result of its dwindling domestic political capital, most of the discussions centered on the US-China trade relationship, which is getting ever more hostile and confrontational.

Particularly, one key theme that dominated the whole session was the sense of embarrassment on the part of the United States. US participants and audiences virtually acknowledged that they had been embarrassed by China's unprecedented immediate and effective retaliatory measures against US trade restriction directed toward China. More concerning was the palpable consensus at the conference that this is just the beginning of a stronger dose of Sino-American tit for tat looming along the horizon.

Any challenge or measure by Washington against a Chinese product has been happily greeted by a comparable challenge or measure by Beijing against a US product. The Beijing government's fearless confidence was further evidenced when it recently poked one of the sorest spots of the United States: it just initiated an anti-subsidy investigation against the US bailout of the automobile industry, an almost taboo issue so far. In sum, the traditional scene of US unilateral complaint and bashing is now history. In US memory, no other country has done this to the United States before.

My sense was that Washington is busy formulating a strategy to deal with the new China, as this is a sort of uncharted territory for the United States. Although the United States has experienced a sporadic rivalry in the trade sector with other trade rivals such as the European Union and Japan, none of them has dared to invite the United States into a caged ring for a bare-knuckle duel.

Furthermore, the traditional trade tension across the Atlantic and the Pacific could be said to have been benign rather than malign, because both Brussels and Tokyo have maintained stable alliances with the United States in diplomatic and military sectors, and because the trade disputes have largely been the process of ironing out bona fide differences, so to speak. Recent disputes with China thus pose a completely different kind of challenge to the United States: for the first time in the 63-year-old GATT/WTO regime, the United States is seeing a trade rival that is both ready and willing to challenge any notion of the U.S. hegemony. Furthermore, not only in the trade sector but also in other sectors is this country more than happy to challenge the US leadership. The discussions in the conference indicated that the United States is now all into preparing a manual and flow chart to deal with this new archrival. Recent disputes surrounding alleged Chinese manipulation of the yuan for the benefit of its exporters would be like pouring gasoline on a fire.

Combining all the pieces together, we can be assured that the US-China trade disputes will continue to intensify. By no means is this a good sign for us. No matter how hard we may try to be as neutral as possible in the disputes, hoping to be an innocent bystander, the fallout from the bare-knuckle fights between our No. 1 and No. 2 trade partners will easily disrupt our trade interest. In an effort to sugarcoat a trade measure, both countries would have more incentives to include Korea and Korean exporters in the mix of a target, as Korea is a main exporter for both countries and yet is not necessarily a major power the two countries may have to be cautious in handling. Any U.S. trade measure against China and any Chinese measure against the U.S. could be equally applicable to Korea with some modifications and adjustments. Korea may turn out to be unintended collateral damage from the colossal collision between the two trade giants. If we cannot get ourselves out of the collision entirely, we had better buckle up tight.

The future trade environment surrounding us seems to be as treacherous and sharp-turning as the fatal luge course in Vancouver. The new course for us is currently under construction and the blueprints tell us that there will be ever more twists and drops. The question is, are we ready for this new course? We should hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

(Lee Jae-min is an associate professor of law at the School of Law, Hanyang University, in Seoul. Formerly he practiced law as an associate attorney with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.)