From the announcements of a $25 billion contract to import liquefied natural gas from Malaysia to a $1 billion investment in a Philippines nickel mine, China this week has been flaunting its growing economic and political might with its near neighbors in Asia.
And Southeast Asian leaders, who gathered in China on Monday and Tuesday to mark 15 years of close relations between their region and its economic giant, have been scrambling to secure investment and trade deals, and to praise Beijing's largesse.
The rhetoric of the 10 leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations is that China's rise presents a historic economic opportunity rather than a security threat. Chinese and Southeast Asian leaders at the China- Asean Business and Investment Summit spoke effusively of a relationship based on "mutual trust in politics and economic integration."
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines, the chairwoman of Asean this year, said Wednesday that "engagement with China has been good for the Philippines and it has been good for Asean," whether measured by rising trade and investment flows, increased aid assistance or security cooperation.
Her comments echoed an endorsement a day earlier of Beijing's charm offensive toward the region by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia, the Southeast Asian leader with the greatest experience in foreign policy. Flushed with triumph after signing the richest liquefied-natural-gas contract with a Chinese buyer, a 25- year deal to supply a Shanghai terminal, Badawi said China had become "very global" and was sincere in its attempts to open up.
"Perceiving China as a threat has been wrong," Badawi said at a news conference Tuesday. "We have always regarded China as an opportunity."
Beijing's commitment to what it calls a "peaceful rise" and the calculated use of its economic clout as leverage to win friends in the developing world is clearly paying dividends.
On Saturday, days after the Southeast Asian leaders have gone home, China will sponsor a two-day China-Africa Co- operation Summit at which 45 African heads of state and government are to discuss economic and development issues.
China runs a trade deficit with most of the developing world, a far cry from its relationships with major markets like the United States, Europe and Japan. But developing countries are vital to China's growth, supplying the raw materials and energy it desperately needs.
The payoff for China from these deepening ties to the developing world is not restricted to commerce.
Many of the arrangements that have inspired Southeast Asian security measures over the past 50 years were designed as bulwarks against Chinese Communist expansion.
Now Southeast Asia, whose leaders have traditionally looked to the United States as the anchor of regional security, are speaking out about the need to strengthen their relationships with Beijing. The issue that topped the agenda in talks this week with Chinese leaders? North Korea's atomic bomb test of Oct. 9.
It is easy to see why so much of the developing world is beating a path to China in pursuit of commercial opportunities. Figures from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, released during the China-Asean meeting in Nanning, show that trade with Southeast Asia jumped to $130 billion in 2005, from $2 billion in 1980.
China's investment in Southeast Asia totaled $35 billion by the end of 2005 and analysts said trade was projected to reach $200 billion by 2010. On just one day of the China-Asean meeting in Nanning, Beijing signed 10 contracts for a total value of $600 million, the Ministry of Commerce said.
On a stopover in Hong Kong on Wednesday, after the summit meeting, Arroyo said the sharp growth in trade with and investment by China was a bonanza for the Philippines. Trade between Beijing and Manila, she said, had grown by "leaps and bounds" and "huge Chinese investments" were flowing in.
"From almost nothing before 2001," she said, bilateral trade was "now $17 billion and very much in favor of the Philippines."
Arroyo said earlier that if, as planned, a free-trade zone was created by 2010 among Asean nations and China, it could reduce Southeast Asia's "dependence for our exports on Western markets, such as the U.S. and Europe."
While Arroyo was in China, the Philippines agreed to allow China's largest steel maker, its largest nickel producer and one of its banks to invest $1 billion in a nickel mine on the island of Mindanao. The planned investment by Baoshan Iron and Steel, Jinchuan Group and China Development Bank would take advantage of a new law in the Philippines that allows 100 percent foreign ownership of mining ventures.
In other deals discussed with Chinese leaders, including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, China has agreed to finance a $400 million extension of a rail line to connect Manila with the industrial center of Clark, about 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, north of the capital. Wen is scheduled to officiate at the groundbreaking ceremony for a glass factory in Clark when he makes a state visit to the Philippines in December. Beijing has put $300 million into the factory.
Arroyo said she and other Southeast Asian leaders were also trying to enhance security cooperation with a Beijing that she said has been willing to show flexibility on territorial claims in the South China Sea.