Bush Behind the Smiles.(President Bush's Asian tour)(Column)

Jeffrey Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management, was under secretary of Commerce for International Trade in the first Clinton administration.

On his 10-day trip to Asia this week, President George W. Bush is likely to get a polite reception for his ambitious agenda. He wants to rally allies to the war on terror, the confrontation with North Korea and the expansion of transpacific trade. He'll be asking Japan and China to allow their currencies to get stronger, so they will find it cheaper to buy more goods from struggling U.S. manufacturers (and give American exports a boost just as the U.S. presidential-election season is gathering steam). Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese will say no outright, but they won't say yes, either. Below the polite ambiguities, something disturbing is happening, at least from an American viewpoint.

For all its military power, political clout and economic might, America could be losing its influence in what is arguably the most dynamic region of the world. Big changes are happening in Asia, for which America's policies are increasingly out of step. Washington's preoccupations--the mess in Iraq, the jobless recovery and the escalating fiscal deficit at home--are not Asia's preoccupations. When Bush looks into the future, he sees an American Century with a troubled story line dominated by the fight against terror. When Asians look into the future, they see an Asian Century dominated by rising prosperity and the emergence of China as a superpower, with terror a minor subplot.

Asians will say the right things about helping with the war on terrorism in order to extract concessions from Bush--more military aid here, a bilateral free-trade agreement there, less serious arm-twisting on currencies in a third instance. But this won't change the basic problem. Asia's main global interest is in international economic polices that help sustain its ongoing boom. And on that front, U.S. leadership is now much weaker than Asians expect.

Yet Asia can push only so hard. The ties among countries in the region are growing stronger, but there is no equivalent to the European Union, and each country sees its relationship with the United States as equally important to those with its neighbors. Each badly needs access to American markets. Most Asian leaders are deeply opposed to the unilateral, pre-emptive way that Washington went to war in Iraq, but they are less bitter about it than Europeans are. Moreover, most Asian leaders want attention from Uncle Sam but not too much--lest Washington become overbearing. For many of them, 10 days of President Bush's hopscotching across the region, shaking hands and giving toasts to no real effect, might be just about right.

The Asian future looks bright even if nothing comes of the Bush trip. Japan may be at last emerging from a decade of recession and seems poised to seek greater political and even military status around the world. China is growing at breakneck speed and, as so nicely symbolized by its successful space launch last week, is making world-class technological strides. The countries hobbled by the financial crisis of the late 1990s--Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea--have rebounded, and they are more skeptical now of listening to the American free-market policy prescriptions that many feel got them into trouble in the first place. There's lots of talk of free-trade pacts in the region and closer security arrangements. Hundreds of millions of new -- Asian consumers with spending power are entering the global market, and the supply systems of virtually every major multinational company from the United States and Europe are more and more dependent on their Asian networks. ...