Floro L. Mercene By Floro L. Mercene   The New York Times Max Fisher and Audery Carlsen March article entitled “How China is Challenging American Dominance in Asia” highlighted this observation: “Every Asian country now trades more with China, often by a factor of two to one, an imbalance that is growing as China’s economic growth outpaces that of United States.” China’s outpacing the US in Asia will continue to accelerate in the coming years. America’s trade imbalance in the region was aggravated by President Donald Trump’s precipitate and arbitrary withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that was supposed to outflank China’s economic expansion. Instead more Asian countries have been pushed to piggy-back on China’s trade locomotive. China is on a historic roll, but more importantly, it is being proven right on many counts where it was once questioned, and continues to consolidate its successes. The recent Facebook-Cambridge Analytica massive information data leak affirms China’s protective supervision of its domestic Internet traffic. China’s rejection of the aggressive US impositions against North Korea has paid off with Kim’s support for “denuclearization.” These are two in a long list of President Xi Jin Ping’s achievements that may help to extend indefinitely his term to ensure his continuing leadership, crucial in China’s quest to achieve the “China Dream.” China’s achievement will be showcased in “Asia’s Voice” in this week’s convening of the Boao Forum, “Asia’s Davos” in Hainan, China. President Rodrigo R. Duterte has astutely judged that the Boao Forum 2018 deserves attention and has decided to attend the event on April 9-10. This visit comes at a crucial and auspicious time for 2018, the year that PH-China “Build, Build, Build” projects will be taking off. Since these are truly massive infrastructures, not “nipa huts” and “farm to market roads” that critics might think, the agreement signed November, 2017, will start building only in 2018. Two $75-million bridges in Binondo and Makati, the Kaliwa Dam, Chico Irrigation, and P170-billion Manila-to-Matnog railway, will be on stream this year, and projects in Visayas and Mindanao will be finalized this year.