At Summit, Ideology Gives Way to Profits : Trade: Half a century of political differences dissolves in the face of new priorities, namely jobs.

They promised history here, and they delivered: Behold the shape of the New World Order.

It’s rectangular and flat, and it folds into a wallet. Spell it C-A-S-H.

Who welcomed Chinese President Jiang Zemin during his first stop here at the highest-level meeting with U.S. officials since China’s human rights violations at Tian An Men Square soured relations in 1989? Chairman Frank Shrontz.

You know him; he’s one of the most important chairmen among the gaggle of titled leaders here at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. He is chairman of Boeing Co., America’s leading exporter and biggest player in one of the few world markets this country still dominates.

Even during these days when superlatives lack their old punch, the gathering of 15 Pacific Rim nations in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is an extraordinary demonstration of how rapidly jobs and profits have displaced 50 years of competition over ideology and military tension in the minds of political leaders.

Sure, this has been coming for 20 years; it’s been obvious for perhaps a decade, but still the APEC summit had the feel of a watershed, a gathering of old national governments under an international tent that resembles nothing so much as an old-fashioned bazaar.

Even five years ago, who could have imagined the Communist president of the world’s most populous nation lobbying Americans about what concerns Americans most--their own jobs? And doing it in terms of how much merchandise his country could buy, if only Washington didn’t make a fuss about things like China’s missile sales and human rights.

China was not alone in emphasizing commerce, of course.

Which American President greeted President Suharto of Indonesia? President Philip Conditof Boeing--and Boeing, again, produces the payroll that made the Pacific Northwest America’s most enthusiastic trading region. So far.

How did Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos launch his “Back in Business” campaign at the APEC summit? He accepted delivery of a Philippine Airlines’ Boeing 747-400, its first.

Still, it was Jiang who set the pace at this farmer’s market of international diplomacy, with the flair of a Madison Avenue marketer and the determination of a Wall Street broker. He presented himself to the American public not as the leader of an emerging superpower or a blustery old Communist ideologue, but as a simple customer.

“The vast potential of China’s market is increasingly being realized,” Jiang said by way of the obvious.

And if you doubted his message, how about Jiang’s next stop? Off he went, at his request, for cookies and tea at the private home of 33-year-old Boeing assembly worker Cary Qualls.

A high school graduate with a high-paying job who lives with his wife and two preschool children, Qualls knows his future will depend not just on how skillfully Boeing can produce airplanes but also on how successfully his country can navigate the shoals of Asian trade competition amid the lingering frictions related to human rights, environmental preservation and domestic protectionism.

To Qualls, foreign policy is no more distant than hanging on to his $93,000 home.

“A good family,” Jiang remarked as he bid the family goodby.

What could be more poignant--and pointed--that that?

Just look into the audience of 1,000 other Boeing workers who gathered to hear the Chinese president. Here were men such as Jan van Weerd, a structural mechanic, disappointed that China had placed its latest order for jets with Europe’s Airbus Industrie, Boeing’s chief competitor. Among the 9,489 workers to receive pink slips at Boeing this year, Van Weerd’s last day on the job will be Wednesday.

At this summit, the very language of foreign policy has been rewritten. Countries are called “economies” so as to avoid friction between the three Chinese entities (the People’s Republic, Taiwan and Hong Kong). Heads of state are called leaders of economies so as to maintain the focus on jobs and growth and development and profits. No national flags are flying.

Old words like containment have disappeared from the diplomatic tongue, but oh, how rich you’d be with a nickel every time someone said competition, or as Jiang put it, fierce competition.

Southeast Asian dominoes are now export commodities, along with New Zealand venison, Canadian wheat and Washington apples. Jeffrey Garten, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, told a group of business executives here to abandon the old characterizations of nations.

Instead, he said, use New Age terms like BEM’s, “big emerging markets.”

But even as the new order dawns and a new century beckons, hardly anyone at APEC can escape the uneasiness that comes at a turning point when one must wonder what lies around the corner. Free trade is a scrimmage line, and sometimes the end zone can seem a long way off. Will trade really pay off with good jobs? How fast? For whom?

President Clinton faced these doubts every step he took, even when jogging through a cloudy Seattle morning.

He told this story Friday: “This morning I ran with some of my friends from Seattle. And we were talking about the irony that some of us felt, being so excited about this meeting and all of its promise and prosperity.

“And one of my friends who is a judge here was going to court to deal with candidates for parole and talking to me about all the young children who are in trouble in, even this, one of our most vibrant cities.

“In times like this it is easy to just turn away. Our people have a right to feel troubled. The challenge of the global economy and our inadequate response to it for years is shaking the mooring of middle-class security.”

But questions of the equities of free trade are not the only concerns some see in the wallet summit. David Bachman, chair of Chinese Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, warns that a U.S. foreign policy rooted so single-mindedly in trade ignores the long history of Asian rivalries and the three wars Americans have fought in Asia this century.

“To hail a new world order strictly in terms of economics will leave us to face some major surprises down the road,” he said in an interview. “It overlooks the fact that there are very major sources of international conflict in this region.”

Times researcher Doug Conner in Seattle contributed to this article.