By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON - In her first days as America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found the Middle East portfolio handed off to a special envoy. Afghanistan and Pakistan were assigned to a special representative. And administration officials expect another special envoy to be tapped soon to deal with Iran.

So with much of her turf already parceled off, Mrs.Clinton made a bid to take over the China file, which in recent years has been primarily the responsibility of the Treasury Department since the major issues with Beijing tend to be economic. Mrs.Clinton said the administration needed“a more comprehensive approach.”The only problem is that Treasury Secretary Timothy F.Geithner has no intention of giving that up.

The opening phase of any administration involves a certain amount of jockeying as new players struggle to define their territory and establish boundaries with colleagues.

Under Mr.Obama, that may prove even more complicated. More than any president in years, he came into office creating new White House czars and special envoys to supervise various issues at home and abroad, overlaying an additional set of actors upon a bureaucracy already wondering who’s in charge. Mr.Obama concluded that new high-powered figures were needed to force change, but they pose a delicate management challenge for a president with no real management experience beyond his presidential campaign.

“I think it’s actually quite a workable model,”said John D.Podesta, who helped design it as Mr.Obama’s transition cochairman. “It doesn’t subjugate the cabinet officers.”While there will be multiple players in every key arena, Mr.Podesta said the new White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, would be a firm umpire.“It puts a burden on Rahm to discipline the intramural sports,”Mr.Podesta said,“but he’s a strong chief of staff and I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

In addition to naming special envoys for critical regions, Mr.Obama also created a new White House office to oversee health care, a new White House office to oversee climate change and energy, a new White House office to oversee urban policy and a new White House office to oversee technology. He also created a new group of economic advisers to go along with the two economic councils the president already has. He plans to name a czar to oversee the economic rescue of the auto industry.

Many of the players bring long, interwoven histories to the table. Mrs.Clinton, for example, reportedly once got Mr.Emanuel demoted when he worked in Bill Clinton’s White House, though they later grew closer. And when Mr.Clinton considered making former Senator George J. Mitchell secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was believed to have favored Madeleine K.Albright. Now Mr.Mitchell is the special envoy to the Middle East.

The economic arena had the most potential for overlap overload, particularly because Mr.Obama appointed Mr.Geith ner to be Treasury secretary but recruited Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary himself, to head the National Economic Council in the White House. In theory, Mr.Geithner has the more prominent position. Mr.Summers, who once had all that, now officially has a staff job charged with coordinating policy across agencies. But anyone who knows Mr.Summers understands the outsize role he will play.

Many of those unpacking boxes in the White House complex and the various departments across town worked together in the past, either in the Clinton administration, on Capitol Hill or at Mr.Podesta’s research organization, the Center for American Progress.

“There are things that cut across agency lines that needed real powerful White House cohesion, direction and leadership,” Mr.Podesta said.“The structure that was built was done with due regard for the fact that there could be conflict. But the team we built was done with the idea that these people could work together.”