Ben Bland is the director of the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute and the author of "Man of Contradictions: Joko Widodo and the Struggle to Remake Indonesia."
Opinion
Face-to-face diplomacy gives China the edge in Southeast Asia
Videoconferences are no substitute for an old-fashioned tete-a-tete
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, bump elbows with Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein during a meeting in Nanping on Apr. 1: the respect that Southeast Asian officials show China can seem like submission. © Xinhua/AP
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