The US global trade deficit topped $800billion last year. Even so, the share of this deficit accounted for by East Asia, including China, in the 10 years to 2006 dropped significantly, from 70 per cent to 46 per cent. Meanwhile, the US trade deficit with the rest of the world has ballooned. Over the past decade, it grew by $244billion with East Asia but by $391billion with the rest of the world. Although China needs to apply fairer trading and currency policies, it is being blamed by US lawmakers, unions and manufacturers for some problems that it did not cause and cannot fix.
Michael Richardson also warns that a US-China trade war would cause significant collateral damage to many countries in the Asia-Pacific.
UPDATE: And to keep those numbers in perspective, see Steve Waldman in the comments section. Oil prices are a crucial element of the story.
Trade Diversion 
I think the tenor of those stats would be very different if one looked at share of imports-ex-petroleum from East Asia. Since the price of oil has better than tripled since the mid-nineties and the US economy is structurally dependent upon oil, I don’t think it’s unfair to consider petroleum imports a separate category.
Trade with China (and East Asia generally) is a complicated story, with both wonderful and troubling aspects. It’s certainly right to criticize people (like me) who harp only on the negatives. But one case that cannot reasonably made is that it is a small story.