SPRINGFIELD, OHIO -- The tragic terrorist strike on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has radically altered U.S. relations with China.

Through hot lines and diplomatic channels, China expressed sympathy and promised support to a shocked and saddened America. The response was in sharp contrast to recent exchanges between the countries, which have shown strain ever since a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter in the South China Sea last April.

Beijing's willingness to assist the U.S. anti-terrorist campaign stems from several considerations. First and foremost, China and the United States share an interest in curbing terrorist activities, particularly those of Islamic fundamentalists. China, like many of Afghanistan's neighboring states, has long been affected by rising Islamic fundamentalism in the region.

In fact, China in the past six years has worked hard to build up the Shanghai Cooperative Forum (SCO). The group, consisting of China, Russia and four other Central Asian states, aims at regional security. The forum set up an anti-terrorist center last year in the Kyrgyzstan capital, Bishkek. It is developing an institutional anti-terrorist mechanism for three-fifths of the huge Eurasian landscape and a quarter of the world's population (1.5 billion people).

The SCO is the only major regional security organization in the world without direct U.S. participation. As a result, Washington has been a bystander to a multilateral effort to curb terrorism in the most volatile part of the world. Washington treats destabilizing activities in China's Xinjiang Province not as terrorist activity, but as the work of freedom fighters or as an example of human-rights abuses.

Beijing has its own agenda in supporting a U.S. anti-terrorist operation. In the short run, China would like to see a measured and precise use of force by the United States in the region. Any massive, indiscriminate strike against a largely defenseless Afghan regime, however, would trigger a refugee deluge for neighboring states, including China -- creating conditions for further radicalization of an already growing Islamic fundamentalist trend.

Beyond the current crisis, China would welcome more sustained diplomatic and economic inputs from Washington. The current U.S. diplomatic effort in the region has been limited to presenting "to-do" lists to countries and stark "us-versus-them" choices, with little regard for the complex domestic situations in these countries.

Beijing also wants to see Washington at least moderate its support for the Taiwan and Tibetan separatist movements, which China considers a danger to its territorial integrity.

These are legitimate concerns and should be seriously considered by Washington for a more meaningful effort against terrorism. The main reason for Beijing's positive response is its long-term strategic determination to work with the U.S.-led international system, no matter how difficult it may be and despite ambivalence on the part of the Chinese general public. This ambivalence turned bitter with the 1999 U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the April 2001 midair collision that cost the life of a Chinese naval pilot.

Beijing's current strategic reckoning is a departure from its costly pursuit, in the past, of two alternatives -- being part of a separate and inefficient Communist trading bloc controlled by Moscow, or living in self-imposed "splendid isolation."

In other words, as long as Washington has the power to facilitate or terminate China's modernization process, China's well being will have to be achieved within the Pax Americana.

Should President Bush attend the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shanghai in late October, China and the United States will have real opportunities to forge a genuine strategic partnership to combat terrorism and reconstruct global stability.