Date: April 2025
Chinese President Xi Jinping has just returned from a week-long Southeast Asia tour of VIP visits to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia. On the docket? Creating relationships with trade deals and colossal infrastructure projects. From new seaports to upgraded railways under the Belt and Road Initiative, the tour highlighted China’s ambition to secure its position in region-building.
The analysts view this move as both strategic and pragmatic. As tensions between the U.S. and China simmer in the background, Beijing appears to be nudging its neighbors to secure its economic future. The ASEAN nations’ benefits are clear—growth and investment—but also come with a balancing act: how to harvest the fruit without depending too much on one world power. But the region is becoming increasingly important in the trade future of the world.