Image wars: China versus the United States.

• Author: Marshall, Tyler
• Position: China's growing regional dominance

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...