Is the US retreat from Asia drawing China, Japan and South Korea closer together?

Historians will one day agree on the exact place and moment Donald Trump lost Asia: Da Nang, November 2017.

There, the US president looked the other way as the 11 remaining Trans-Pacific Partnership members made a deal, cementing his “America first” misadventure. It also may be remembered as the catalyst that brought East Asia’s biggest economies together.

The past several years have seen China, Japan and South Korea pushed further apart by territorial disputes, nationalist tendencies, mercantilist trade policies, you name it. Xi Jinping’s coronation last month, pundits said, would give the powerful Chinese leader greater scope to marginalise Japan. Shinzo Abe’s October 22 election win was his ticket to revising the war-renouncing constitution in ways that enrage Xi. South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s liberalism made an incompatible addition to strongman-heavy North Asia.

But Xi and Abe met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, generating optimism for detente. Abe said he’ll “strongly promote” better relations; Xi talked of “positive developments”. A 40-minute summit between Xi and Moon was another milestone after 16 months of brawling over US missile-defence systems.