Posted on: Monday, December 6, 2004

EDITORIAL
China's capitalizing on Bush distraction

Foreign policy wonks used to joke that Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation was an adjective in search of a noun. You'd think the search would have ended by now.

But APEC's cousin, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which met last week in Laos, doesn't face that difficulty.

APEC and ASEAN grew in different directions as the former expanded with such members as Russia and Peru, while ASEAN made room for less affluent states such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Then in 1993, President Clinton added to APEC's prestige — if not its singleness of purpose — when he expanded APEC to include an informal gathering of its 21 heads of state each year.

At last month's APEC meeting in Chile, President Bush used the forum to sell the world on his view of the war on terrorism while the other delegations, by and large, struggled to return economic issues to the fore.

Now, in a development likely to cast a long shadow over APEC, China and the 10 ASEAN countries have agreed to create the world's largest free trade area — bigger than NAFTA, bigger than the European Union.

Prominently excluded is the United States. History may show this as the moment the regional center of gravity shifted from the United States to China.

Of course, China is capitalizing on a vacuum left by U.S. policy-makers distracted by the war in Iraq and terrorism.

It's a "natural evolution," not necessarily a threat to American interests, as Charles Morrison, East-West Center president, told the Los Angeles Times.

But China is increasing its diplomatic profile — in the North Korea dispute, in setting the regional agenda, and now in promoting an Asian economic integration that competes against, rather than includes, the United States.

Iraq is an enormous drain on Washington's attention, but we can't afford to let Asia drift this way indefinitely.