Chinese president engages in charm offensive in Southeast Asia as U.S. tariffs rattle region

The timing couldn’t be better for Chinese President Xi Jinping as he wraps up a tour of three countries in Southeast Asia amid growing tariff pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. “It’s a very smart move,” said Gil Lan, an associate professor in the law and business department at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. Xi’s five-day visit to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia has been an effort to shore up allies and support within the region and present Beijing as a stable, reliable partner in the wake of sweeping tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month…