Suspicions about China's hegemonic aims have also added to satisfaction at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement during the region's biggest security forum this week that the "United States is back".

Following years of relative neglect by Washington, Clinton signed a landmark friendship pact with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

While communist Vietnam and Laos and former communist Cambodia may have reservations about the increased US involvement, staunch allies such as Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are glad to see Washington back in play, analysts said.

"The United States does not want to be perceived to be ceding influence in the region," John Harrison, a security analyst at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told AFP.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said in his opening remarks to Clinton on Wednesday that the United States is the "key pillar for stability in the region in the 21st century."

"The US is therefore an integral part of our past, our present and our future," he said, adding that the region's countries "appreciate the gestures you have made."

These included actually attending the broader, 27-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) that also groups the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South and North Korea and others -- her predecessor Condoleezza Rice missed two.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo said that the signing of the treaty of amity and understanding on Wednesday -- six years after China inked the pact -- was a "very positive and affirmative sign."

"This means they (Washington) will get engaged with all the issues pertaining not only to ASEAN but to northeast Asia and Asia. The US wants to get engaged and therefore this is good,' he said.

Southeast Asian diplomats at the conference said that the US had shown its commitment in recent years despite criticisms of its foreign policy throughout the presidency of George W. Bush.

During the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, its military led the humanitarian effort in Aceh, while there had been valuable anti-terror cooperation with the Philippines, they said.

For its part, Beijing has in recent years being trying to project its "soft power" in the region, but the Asian giant has not been able to fully overcome concerns about its ultimate aims.

China's actions in the Spratlys islands, which are valued for potentially vast mineral and oil deposits, have demonstrated that it can be a regional bully, diplomats said.

Apart from China and the Philippines, the Spratlys are claimed in whole or in part by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. China stepped up patrols there earlier this year.

A senior Asian diplomat also said that China's action against ethnic protesters in Tibet and the northwestern Xinjiang region "doesn't seem to sit well".

In economic terms, China's trade with the region saw a 20-fold increase between 2003 and 2008 to 179 billion dollars, while the US saw just a three-fold rise, according to ASEAN figures.

But the US maintained a slightly larger share of total ASEAN commerce than China.

John Brandon of the US-based Asia Foundation said that having signed the treaty the United States and Southeast Asia "must go beyond symbolism and cultivate a deeper, more meaningful relationship".

They must address transnational challenges including disaster preparedness, energy, food and water security, global warming and pandemic disease surveillance, he said in a commentary on the ARF.

He said that these "are areas where the forum can make some headway in moving beyond a confidence-building stage toward collective action."

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