WHAT OTHERS SAY

PINDO-PACIFIC GAINS

rime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Philippines to attend the ASEANINDIA summit, the East Asia Summit and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership summit has put India centre-stage in the Asian region now REFERRED to As “INDO-PACIIC”. Equally, It puts THE “INDO-PACIIC” and ties with the U.S. centre-stage in India’s Act East policy, in all three spheres: political, strategic and economic. Mr. Modi’s arrival in Manila was PRECEDED By THE irst MEETING of THE INDIA-U.S.-JAPAN-AUSTRALIA quadrilateral, A Grouping irst mooted In 2006 By JAPANESE PRIME Minister Shinzo ABE. It ended with statements on cooperation for a “free, open, prosperous and Inclusive INDO-PACIIC region”, A DIRECT signal that It will Counter CHINA’S actions in the South China Sea if necessary. Next, Mr. Modi’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump saw a similar emphasis on cooperating in the INDO-PACIIC, A term now widely ADOPTED By THE U.S. THE ‘QUAD’ Doesn’t Just pertain to maritime surveillance, it also aims at enhancing connectivity in ACCORDANCE with “THE rule of law” AND “prudent inancing” In THE INDO-PACIIC together, A REFERENCE to AMERICAN plans to BUILD An “Alternative inancing model” to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Finally, Mr. Modi’s speech to ASEAN vowed to bring India’s economic and business ties with the region up to the level of their “exceptionally good political and people-to-people relations”. This sets the stage for closer engagement ahead of the 25th year Commemorative Summit to be held in Delhi in January 2018, with ASEAN leaders also expected to attend Republic Day festivities. The Hindu

IN SHARP CONTRAST

Authoritarian leaders exercise a strange and powerful attraction for President Trump. As his trip to Asia reminds us, a man who loves to bully people turns to mush — fawning smiles, effusive rhetoric — in the company of strongmen like Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Perhaps he sees in them a relection of THE person HE would like to BE. WHATEVER THE reason, there’s been nothing quite like Mr. Trump’s love affair with one-man rule since Spiro Agnew returned from a world tour in 1971 singing the praises of thuggish dictators like Lee Kuan Yew, Haile Selassie, Jomo Kenyatta, Mobutu Sese Seko and Gen. Francisco Franco. Mr. Trump’s obsessive investment in personal relations may work for a real estate dealmaker. But the degree to which he has chosen to curry favour with some of the world’s most unsavory leaders, while lavishing far less attention on America’s democratic allies, hurts America’s credibility and, in the long run, may have dangerous repercussions. In China, he congratulated Mr. Xi for securing a second term as ruler of an authoritarian regime that Mr. Trump had spent the 2016 campaign criticizing. He again absolved Mr. Putin of INTERFERING In THE UNITED States Election, DESPITE THE inding of American intelligence agencies that Moscow did extensive meddling. As for Mr. Duterte, Mr. Trump effused about their “great” relationship while saying nothing about the thousands of Filipinos who died in a campaign of extrajudicial killings as part of the Philippine president’s antidrug war.

The New York Times