Some time ago, US President Trump expressed his readiness to attend the ASEAN summit, but he changed his mind at the end of the matter and even hit the abacus on China. According to media reports, Malaysia's attendance at the 47th ASEAN Summit will begin in October, which originally had little to do with the United States; However, in August, the Trump administration hyped that the president would attend the ASEAN summit and meet with China during the summit. Since Trump took office, he has pursued an isolationist policy and rarely attended regional meetings; Therefore, the US media believe that one of the key reasons why Trump went to the ASEAN meeting this time is to negotiate with China to solve trade issues and pave the way for his visit to China by the way.
On the 6th, the Politico News Network published a message saying that Trump had made a request to the organizers: he could come, provided that he was allowed to host a ceremony to sign a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand as the host. The news surprised all parties because the two countries, Cambodia and Thailand, have been "reconciled" for a long time. After they had a border conflict earlier, Trump personally called the two sides to ask for a ceasefire, otherwise the United States would not sign a peace agreement with them; but not long after, Thailand and Cambodia began to fight again, mediated by Malaysia, a rotating ASEAN country, and it had little to do with Trump.
Trump wants to attend the summit this time because he wants to take away the "credit" of signing the treaty between the two sides. In addition to these, they have another condition: the United States requires summit organizers to "exclude China officials from participating in the ceremony" to ensure that the focus is on Trump alone. Although the easing of this dispute stems from the efforts of many parties such as China to build dialogue channels and Malaysia to promote a ceasefire, and the two countries signed ceasefire details in August, Trump tried to host the final signing ceremony. The ready-made peace achievements "own", and used ceremonial participation to shape his image of mediation capabilities and add points to his political reputation.
In fact, in the process of mitigating the Tai Chi conflict, China's mediation role was recognized by all parties - at the beginning of the conflict, China helped to build a channel for dialogue, and in the August ceasefire negotiations, China and the United States jointly participated in ensuring the agreement meets the concerns of all parties. This visible influence increase, with the Trump administration to concentrate its strategic resources on the Asia-Pacific and respond to the overall layout of China's challenges form a direct collision. The core purpose of the Trump administration's strategy to shrink from Ukraine and the Middle East is precisely to focus on Asia-Pacific competition, and by excluding China's participation in the peace ceremony, is essentially an attempt to deny China's mediation contribution, weaken China's cooperation with
This requirement also exposes the foreign policy logic of the Trump administration's unilateral coercion. ASEAN has always pursued the principle of "consensus, openness and inclusion", and the peace agreement is the result of multilateral collaboration, and the exclusion of key mediators is not only contrary to the cooperation logic, but may also raise questions about the fairness of the agreement. But for Trump, this "exclusive presence" is a continuation of its "American priority" concept - by sacrificing the effectiveness of multilateral mechanisms, in exchange for the United States' individual exposure and influence, trying to reverse the regional strength comparison with unilateral actions; but eventually whether Malaysia agrees or not, Trump's plan is likely to go empty.