First the President goes to India -- China's long-term rival and border contestant -- and agrees to give India nuclear fuel. Then the Secretary of State goes to Southeast Asia for what are billed as "security talks" with Australia and Japan. Before she leaves she says China could become a "negative force" in the region. Then, during the meetings last week in Sydney, an anonymous member of the administration tells the The New York Times that the White House hopes China views those meetings with concern.

With the world's attention focused on America in the Middle East, the U.S. is quietly embarking on what can only be understood as a policy of containing China. The Bush administration is anxious about China's soaring influence. Last week China announced another increase in its military budget, to the equivalent of $35 billion next year. And its booming economy is making China the powerhouse of Asia.

So does it make sense to encircle China with a kind of new NATO comprised of the U.S., India, Australia, and Japan?

No. China is nothing like the old communist menace that inspired the creation of NATO. Nor should we try to contain China with an alliance analogous to what the U.S. created with Europe during the Cold War.

China isn't even communist, although its government professes to be. It's the fastest-growing capitalist nation in the world. Australia and Japan themselves are becoming ever more economically dependent on China. To keep its ravenous industries going, China is importing a huge quantity of raw materials from Australia and technology and higher-value-added supplies from Japan. These purchases are fueling economic recoveries in both nations.

Almost every large American-based corporation is already in China, or heading there. Not only are American companies making ever more of their manufactured goods in China, but they are also racing there to sell everything from computers to investment advice to a growing Chinese middle class. Even Wal-Mart is hurtling into China. It just announced it would open 20 stores there next year and hire 150,000 Chinese to staff additional Wal-Marts to be opened there over the next five years.

Besides, America desperately needs China. We are dependent on China's continuing willingness to lend us billions of dollars a year. Without this cash flow, the U.S. economy would implode. The U.S. government could not keep running huge budget deficits. Americans could not keep spending without saving.

We also need China to help us police North Korea. China is the only nation with real economic leverage over that rogue nation.

If we encircle China with that resembles a new NATO, we feed China's fear that America sees it as our enemy. That way we strengthen the hands of hard-liners in the Chinese government who want to further crack down on dissent, to take over Taiwan, and to build up China's military even more.

By casting China as our nemesis we also legitimize fears of many Americans that China is taking over our jobs and our economy.

The best way to deal with China is to continue to let it prosper. The larger and more buoyant China's middle class becomes, the less we have to fear. Prosperity is not a “zero-sum” game of winners and losers. We win if they win. A big Chinese middle class will buy more goods and services from America and the rest of the world. It will also want to avoid military belligerence that interferes in economic growth. And it will eventually demand democratic reforms.

But treat China as our enemy and it could become our enemy. That would be a mistake as tragic as treating the Arab world as our enemy.

Robert B. Reich is co-founder of The American Prospect. A version of this column originally appeared on Marketplace.