The gathering of Asians and Americans, all experienced in dealing with Trans-Pacific issues, quickly zeroed in on a basic obstacle to better relations among the nations of this region.

At the East-West Center's senior seminar here, Americans and Asians alike pointed to: Washington, D.C.

"The atmosphere in Washington is the worst in the memory of anyone now alive," said James Kelly, who as an assistant secretary of state headed the East Asia division of that department during President George W. Bush's first term.

"The inattention to Asia is unfortunate but probably natural," Kelly said in an opening tour of the horizon, because of the demands of the war in Iraq, the conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah terrorists, and attempts to contain the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

"There is an insufficient realization that Asia has become the center of gravity," he said, meaning the focal point of political, economic and military power with which the U.S. must cope. "Policy and strategy toward East Asia," he said, "are not easy to discern."

Stephen Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines and South Korea, chimed in. "The administration can't deal with more than one or two issues at a time," he said. "There just isn't enough time in a day or enough energy."

Bosworth, now dean of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University near Boston, added: "The inattention of Washington may not be reversible in a couple of years because it is so absorbed with Iraq, Iran and the Middle East." Instead, he suggested the U.S. would be in a holding pattern until 2009, when a new president will take office after the election of November 2008.

Meantime, Bosworth said, the foundations of power in Asia "will have shifted while we were not paying attention. By 2009, the context will have shifted." Kelly took that thought a step further: "Even in 2009, we don't know if the U.S. will take a better direction."

A Chinese perspective came from Jin Canrong, of the People's University of China, who said his government had "rather low" expectations of the remaining years of the Bush administration. "There is nothing we really want from Sino-U.S. relations," the scholar said.

Similarly, the press secretary of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Shaukat Sultan Khan, said "one cannot expect miracles in the last two years" of Bush's term. He expressed concern that Bush would use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms, a conflict that would spill into Pakistan next door.

A senior member of Vietnam's National Assembly, Ton Nu Thi Ninh, applauded veterans of both the U.S. and Vietnam for leading a reconciliation between her nation and the U.S., which fought a 25-year war that ended in 1975. Even so, she said, "Vietnam is low in U.S. priorities. Vietnam has no illusions about that."

To encourage candor, none of the 34 political leaders, government officials, diplomats, military officers, scholars, think-tank people, business executives and journalists at the seminar could normally be quoted. Kelly, whose home is in Honolulu, and Bosworth, however, gave permission to be quoted. Jin, Khan, and Ninh spoke at a public luncheon later.

A Southeast Asian suggested there was an exception to Washington's inattention to Asia, which was "an obsession with China" that reduced Washington's consideration of other issues to how they would affect relations with China.

Kelly and Bosworth agreed. Kelly responded: "China is a potential new hegemon in Asia. Its economy and dynamic diplomacy affect all in the region. But there is a willingness to have the U.S. play a role there. We are not being forced out."

A military officer said the U.S. Pacific Command sought to expand its engagement with the People's Liberation Army to work out agreements that would prescribe the behavior of U.S. and Chinese forces when they were close together. The U.S. and Russia have such an agreement, intended to prevent hostile incidents at sea, but the Chinese have resisted that approach.

Several Asians urged the U.S. to engage the people in Asian democracies. Said a national legislator: "The U.S. should look at the publics of other democracies as if they were your own constituents. If you do, you might be able to overcome the anti-American feelings in some nations."

In the end, however, Kelly was not optimistic about the administration's interest in forging a fresh policy toward Asia. "Asia is not waiting for word from Washington," he said, "but is moving ahead."

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in Sunday's Focus section.