Of the six leading Republican and Democratic contenders for presidential nominations, only Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., have produced comprehensive policies toward Asia that each would implement if elected to the White House.

Two more, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, have sketched out proposals for approaches to Asia.

The last two, the Republican former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., have said little about this issue.

McCain's plan, laid out in an essay in the journal Foreign Affairs, is perhaps the most extensive. He says: "Power in the world today is moving east; the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise."

Moreover, he says: "The linchpin to the region's promise is continued American engagement."

Specifically, McCain says: "I welcome Japan's international leadership and emergence as a global power." He supports Japan's effort to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council alongside Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. He would encourage a partnership with India, a stronger alliance with Australia, and would rebuild frayed relations with South Korea.

McCain is cautious about China: "Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American president." On the sensitive issue of Taiwan, McCain says: "When China threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note."

The senator would seek an "elevated partnership" with Indonesia and would "expand defense cooperation" with Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. That last is intriguing since McCain, a naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war and was brutally beaten many times.

Edwards is not so detailed as McCain but more sweeping than opponents within his party. Overall, he says on a Web site, the U.S. must "strive to maintain our strong partnerships with longtime allies, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and the transforming European Union."

Edwards asserts that U.S. relations with China are "delicate."

He argues: "China's influence and importance will only continue to grow" and asserts that "our overarching goal must be to get China to commit to the rules that govern the conduct of nations."

On India, Edwards says: "The United States and India are natural allies, and the U.S.-Indian strategic partnership will help shape the 21st century." He advocates reforming the United Nations to include a place for India on the Security Council.

Clinton has stirred discussion in Asia with a declaration about China that is at odds with the views of many other American politicians. "Our relationship with China," she says in an essay in Foreign Affairs, "will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century."

In contrast, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and the senator's husband, reflected a widespread view among both Democrats and Republicans. While he was in the White House, he said: "The United States has no more important bilateral relationship than our relationship with Japan. We are strategic allies and our futures are bound up together."

Moreover, Sen. Clinton asserted: "We must persuade China to join global institutions." Yet the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook reports that China, one of five nations with a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, belongs to about 70 international organizations. (In comparison, the U.S. belongs to about 80.)

In another surprising statement, Clinton writes that Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, was one of the "springboards for 9/11," the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. Yet most reports say Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, and his al-Qaida followers, also Saudis, conspired in Afghanistan to hijack the airliners that crashed into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

Republican Romney sees Asian nations, particularly China, as economic competitors rather than as security partners or adversaries. "China and the rest of Asia," he says on his Web site, "are on the move economically and technologically."

He lumps all Asians together despite differences in political systems, economic development and social order, saying: "They are a family oriented, educated, hard-working and mercantile people." He argues: "If America acts boldly and swiftly, the emergence of Asia will be an opportunity."

Romney's opponents might agree with his concluding thought: "If America fails to act, we will be eclipsed."

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