The week-long tour of Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea by US President Donald Trump, which started on October 26, 2025, and included his participation in the latest ASEAN and APEC Summits, became a noteworthy episode in the current stage of the “Great Global Game.”
At both summits, held respectively in the capitals of Malaysia and South Korea, the United States, China, and Japan were represented at the highest level. It is significant because these are the three players whose relations most directly shape the overall situation in the Indo-Pacific, which the focus of global dynamics has been shifting to.
Donald Trump in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur
It seems that the current US president is only and predominantly interested in all these international squabbles due to seeing each of them as an opportunity to chalk down another “settled conflict” to his list of achievements. During the trip, Trump laid claim to helping put an end to a brief border flare-up between Cambodia and Thailand that had erupted and almost immediately died down, three months earlier. What actually took place in Kuala Lumpur was the signing of some document formalising the ceasefire between the two ASEAN members, largely brokered mainly by the Association’s secretariat. President Trump attended the ceremony. And that, perhaps, is the full extent of his role in halting yet another, and surely not the last, round of escalation in the relations between the above-mentioned countries.
Far more significant in Kuala Lumpur, however, was the latest, the fifth, round of talks between the US and its main geopolitical rival, China, on trade and economic issues in the bilateral relations. The negotiations were led by He Lifeng, China’s First Vice Premier, and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Official statements on the outcomes, despite Trump’s trademark bursts of self-congratulation, were deliberately bland and restrained. Alongside statements about a “deepened and constructive exchange of views on key trade and economic matters,” the sides, curiously, marked their intention to “continue work on specific details and follow each side’s internal approval procedures”.
As for the foreign-policy component of the US-China relations, it was addressed in a parallel phone conversation between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. And it is exactly the political dimension where the principal threat to Trump’s optimism actually lies: just prior to these events, Rubio and the US Congress reaffirmed America’s commitments to Taiwan. Commitments that will not be sacrificed for the sake of any compromise in relations with Beijing. Which is neither contributed to by the sharpening US-China rivalry throughout Southeast Asia, which discussions in Kuala Lumpur centred around.
Still, throughout the trip, President Trump remained buoyantly confident about his prospects of striking a “fantastic deal” with the Chinese leader. Prior to that anticipated encounter, he made a stop in Japan to review the state of relations with America’s most important ally, now under a new prime minister.
Trump Meets Japan’s New Prime Minister
For Sanae Takaichi, confirmed as Japan’s prime minister just a week before the Kuala Lumpur events, her participation in the ASEAN gatherings offered an early opportunity to make her mark on the international stage. Naturally, Japan’s partners were keen to see the new leader’s foreign policy positioning with Japan’s rising clout in global affairs. Commentators, in this regard, pay attention to Takaichi’s chosen public image bearing a striking resemblance to that of Margaret Thatcher.
Indeed, the nickname “Japan’s Iron Lady” has already stuck firmly to the new prime minister. And her inaugural speech in the parliament, as well as the contents of her performance in Kuala Lumpur, both tally with that impression. As far as the latter, what could be singled out is her conversation with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In recent years, Japan’s relations with the Philippines have taken on an increasingly visible defense dimension which the new prime minister clearly intends to boost further, with full US encouragement.
Thus, during his visit to Tokyo, Trump had every reason to speak glowingly of Japan’s new leader, which sharply collides with his attitude to Europe’s (still nominally) allied leaders. The American president himself was received in Japan with all the honors due a head of state. His main objective was to project an image of strength and stability ahead of his meeting with his chief geopolitical rival.
Japan, for its part, continues to affirm its commitment to the military-political alliance with the United States, which serves Tokyo’s own interests first and foremost. Contrary to the old propaganda trope of “occupation and dependency,” Japan’s leadership has been persistently demonstrating greater freedom of manoeuvre on the world stage. The newly formed Takaichi government shares the trend, which is testified by the mere fact, as well as the contents, of a phone call between Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, which took place, notably, on the very day Trump left Tokyo for Seoul. Takaichi herself had earlier sent some cautiously positive signals towards Moscow, while her ministers worked productively alongside their Chinese counterparts at the “ASEAN+3” Summit in Kuala Lumpur, a format bringing together all Southeast Asian countries plus China, Japan, and South Korea.
The Trump–Xi Meeting Does Take Place
Just days before the scheduled APEC Summit in South Korea, it was by no means certain that the meeting between the US and Chinese leaders on the sidelines of the summit would actually occur. In the end, it did take place, and that is actually all that can be said about it. Given the complex of pressing issues between the two powers, it would have been unrealistic to expect anything more than that. In other words, the fog hanging over nearly every aspect of US–China relations shows no sign of decreasing in its density.
The main outcome of President Trump’s tour of three Asian nations turned out to be less about diplomacy and more about the media buzz provoked by the footage of the high guest enthusiastically joining in local dances.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on Asia-Pacific region issues
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