After largely avoiding the subprime mortgage morass, Japanese and Chinese financial giants are poised to take advantage of Wall Street's crisis.

With economic and banking activity still growing rapidly in China and much of Asia, the collapse of several world-spanning American institutions may speed an ongoing shift from New York to Shanghai and Tokyo, analysts say.

"It is not so much a question of filling the vacuum left by big U.S.players but of finding (in Chinese eyes), their rightful place in the world financial system," said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a senior adviser on China to Citigroup's investment banking unit. "Wall Street's implosion only accelerates a trend that was already in process."

Said Japanese trade official Hajime Ito: "Japanese financial institutions will be very cautious (in the current crisis). But they are now very experienced in global markets and know how to take risks. They see an opportunity." Ito is president of the Japan External Trade Organization in New York.

Analysts say it will be years before the big Asian investment houses make overt moves to take their place among the world's most powerful.

Nomura Securities, Japan's top broker, snapped up Lehman's Asian assets last month, calling it a "once-in-a-generation opportunity." Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is buying 21% of Morgan Stanley (MS).

But those were relatively "modest" moves, according to Edward Lincoln, who runs the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies at New York University's Stern School of Business. He says Japanese banks are still gun-shy from past mistakes.

"It's hard to tell what Japanese financial institutions are going to do. They're certainly in better financial shape than in the past," said Lincoln, who advised Walter Mondale, the former vice president and U.S. ambassador to Japan, in the 1990s.

Many big Japanese players lost heavily in overseas investment forays in the late 1980s. They underwent painful capital restructurings after a real estate and stock bubble popped in the early 1990s.

So Japanese banks had little appetite for the U.S. subprime mortgages or complex debt securities that ensnared American financials.

Japan's financial regulator pegged local banks' subprime exposure at $12.1 billion late last year, vs. the hundreds of billions weighing on U.S. players.

Lincoln says Japan's top three brokers — Nomura, Daiwa and Nikko — have also rebounded from losses in the 1990s and are in position to make more overseas acquisitions.

China Big, Not Brash

On China's side, major banks like ICBC, China Construction Bank and Bank of China all enjoy very large market caps. This places them in a strong position against relatively depressed U.S. financial companies — making the latter potential takeover targets.

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