With the United States preoccupied by war and nuclear threats in the Middle East and an array of problems elsewhere, a quiet revolution is underway in East Asia as the region adjusts to the reemergence of a great power: China.

The changes underway signal nothing less than the political equivalent of shifting tectonic plates that, over time, will produce a region far more integrated within itself, far more closely connected with China, and--virtually by definition--more distanced from America. Some say that the way events are headed, Beijing will eventually develop a position of dominance with the countries of Southeast Asia similar to the U.S. relationship with Latin American states--a first among equals, the nation whose voice invariably carries the day as much due to its disproportionate size as the validity of its argument.

Jin Canrong, deputy dean of Renmin University's School of International Studies in Beijing, noted one measure of the changing times. Jin recalled that when, in 1993, Malaysian leader Mohammad Mahathir first raised the idea of an East Asian Economic Caucus, Mahathir consulted with Tokyo, not Beijing. But just over a decade later when Mahathir's successor, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmed Badawi, contemplated the idea of a 16-nation summit of Asia-Pacific nations, he consulted first with Beijing, not Tokyo. "China is much more active in regional diplomacy now", Jin said.

Evidence of China's deepening involvement in the East Asia-Pacific region is just about everywhere. It's in the fast-expanding trade ties--ties that last year hit $130 billion with the ten Southeast- Asian nations and carry the prospect of continued off-the-charts export growth for the near and medium term.

It's there in the ramshackle northern suburbs of Manila and neighboring Bulacan Province where the Chinese have cleared land to build a $1.2 billion rail line connecting the capital with industrial zones hundreds of miles to the north.

It's in the jaw-dropping size of a $25-billion liquid-natural-gas deal Beijing has signed with Australia or the overall injection of economic growth Australia has enjoyed thanks to trade with China--a boost strong enough that pundits labeled last year's income-tax reduction, "the China tax cut." Some specialists talk of a long-term integration of the Australian and Chinese economies in ways that can't help but influence the security relationships of both countries. And while Australian politicians continue to insist that there would be no question of where Australia's loyalties would be in any direct showdown that forced a direct choice between Washington and Beijing, there are indications that once-clear lines are beginning to blur.1

And it's written on the face of senior Thai Commerce Ministry official Pisanu Rienamhasarn--a trade specialist with perfect English and an advanced economics degree from Duke--who says he now finds Chinese more useful than English. Spread across Rienamhasarn's desk are maps showing progress of a new 1,170 mile-long road project that, when it opens next year, will run from Kunming in southwestern China through the nations of Indochina all the way to the ports of southern Thailand, slashing travel time, boosting trade and binding more closely the destinies of China and its southern hinterland.

Over late-night coffee at his apartment high above central Bangkok's fashionable Sukhumvit Road, Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon talked about his government's efforts to transform the national perception of China from that of a rapacious competitor into a partner. "We felt we have to turn China into a partner, a strategic partner", he said.

He described new provincial-level ties now being formed between individual Chinese and Thai regional governments to promote small business contacts and cultural exchanges. And as the evening grew late, Kantathi sketched his vision for Thailand as a country near the heart of an East Asia free trade area that would include not jut neighboring Southeast Asian countries, but also China, Japan, South Korea and, one day, India. These and other factors make the official Sino-Thai pledge last year to triple annual bilateral trade to $50 billion by decade's end more than just propaganda.

The Kunming-Bangkok highway project is part of a far more ambitious Asian Development Bank (ADB) plan to integrate the Mekong River countries of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam with China's southwestern Yunnan Province and its Guangxi autonomous region and also turn the region into a crossroads by eventually reopening an east-west road connecting China and India.

On parts of the east-west corridor already completed, for example, transit time between Thailand and Vietnam has been cut by up to 75 percent, according to Jean-Pierre Verbiest, the ADB's country director for Thailand. While trade between Asia's two giants--India and China--has already jumped sharply in the past few years, Verbiest said that improved logistics and transportation routes would trigger what he called "formidable new growth" in trade between them.

In June, a 200-strong Chinese trade delegation (headed by Commerce Minister Bo Xilai) visiting Manila laid the groundwork for expanded trade and investment ties, reviewing a list of potential projects valued at $32 billion at the inaugural session of the Philippines-China Economic Partnership Forum in areas ranging from agriculture and fishing to tourism, mining and energy.

The two countries recently closed a $1.2 billion nickel mining venture for a Chinese consortium to work in the Surigao area of northeastern Mindanao, in a deal expected to be the first in a wave of Chinese involvement in the mineral-rich Philippines. "We have a reserve [of gold, copper and nickel] worth $1 trillion", President Gloria Arroyo told her resource-hungry Chinese visitors during a discussion of future areas of cooperation.

Such high-profile events are a perfect fit for Beijing's soothing diplomatic message, repeated over and over to countries of the region: China's emergence as a regional power is not a zero-sum game. It is a win-win game for China and its neighbors to the south. Wu Zhengping, a senior commerce ministry official in Beijing, called such development projects in the region "a priority area" for China.

And where is the United States in all this? At the highest levels, understandable distracted as more pressing events in the Middle East and elsewhere soak up time and crowd Asia out. Pulled by events in Sudan and the Middle East, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last July (2005) skipped the region's most important meeting of foreign ministers. She delayed by three months a scheduled trip to Australia in January when Israeli premier Ariel Sharon had his stroke and arrived a day late to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in November, again because of pressing developments in the Middle East.

"There's a perception of negligence or indifference on the part of the United States", said Rodolfo Biazon, chairman of the Philippine Senate's National Defense and Security Committee. Biazon, a former marine general who underwent training at Quantico, VA and is widely viewed as pro-American, said he found U.S. officials eager to talk about terror, but that they preferred to skirt an issue that mattered to him: a 12 percent tariff the United States slapped on Philippine canned tuna that he said was crippling the country's industry. "Terrorism is the only effective link we have [with the United States]. Security, economics, everything else, there isn't much interest."

Ifzal Ali, chief economist at the Asian Development Bank, echoed a similar sentiment: "There's only so much a country can focus on at the same time. I think there's a bit of benign neglect" in America's relations with the region. As an example of this detachment, he cited what he termed "the administration's constant berating" of China to revalue its currency, calling the stance the result of "a very myopic view towards the developments in the region."

But five nations of East Asia and the western Pacific--Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Australia--also share another common bond: all are formal treaty allies of the United States. As such, they form key parts of America's security umbrella for the Asia-Pacific.

China wants to avoid conflict with the United States. As Beijing struggles to control the social dislocation that accompanies its historic transformation from a centrally planned Marxist economy to an energetic free enterprise system, it values above all political stability and trade to keep its economic growth going. America's presence in the East Asia region carries real benefits for Beijing. It constrains Japan and Taiwan, two of China's biggest concerns in the region. It keeps international sea lanes open for the trade China needs to grow and it provides a calming effect that allows nations of the region to concentrate on commercial activity, rather than worry about security.

While there's no confrontation between the two giants, a definite wariness exists between them. Beijing's willingness to offer large and generous contracts-- mainly for energy resources in countries such as Sudan and Burma, nations with which Washington has refused on human rights grounds to do business--is one source of tension.

China has worked to dilute American power in the region, not just indirectly through its strong trade ties and soft diplomacy, but also through new multilateral groups such as the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ASEAN+3 group (the 10 ASEAN members states plus China, Japan and South Korea) and, just last year, the 16-country East Asia Dialogue. One thread these groups share is that none include the United States.

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