Want to win over Trump? Asian leaders see flattery as the magic ingredient

EDITOR'S ANALYSIS

Trump has been showered with praise and gestures of veneration passim his five-day circuit of Asia.

With Donald Trump, flattery volition get you everywhere.

At slightest that appears to beryllium the cognition of leaders who person been gathering with the United States president connected his archetypal sojourn to East and Southeast Asia since helium re-entered the White House successful January.

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A person with fewer equals for bombast and bravado, Trump has been showered with praise and gestures of veneration passim his five-day circuit of the region, which culminated successful Thursday’s high-stakes acme with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim praised Trump for his “tenacity” and “courage” successful achieving the “almost impossible” task of securing a ceasefire statement betwixt Thailand and Cambodia.

In Japan, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi gushed to Trump astir however “impressed and inspired” she was by his bid efforts and said she had recommended him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In South Korea, President Lee Jae Myung talented Trump a aureate crown, a replica of an artefact from the past Silla kingdom, and the country’s highest decoration, the Grand Order of Mugunghwa.

The outpouring of flattery came arsenic Malaysia, Japan and South Korea each finalised commercialized deals with Trump aft months of negotiations.

Even China, the state closest to matching the US successful powerfulness and power and whose relations with Washington person been peculiarly strained nether Trump, has heaped connected the praise.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi referred to Trump and Xi arsenic “world-class leaders” who person “interacted implicit a agelong play and respect each other”.

While smiles and handshakes are staples of diplomacy, Asian leaders appeared to beryllium going the other mile to curry favour with Trump successful their commercialized negotiations with his administration, said Henry Gao, a prof astatine Singapore Management University and elder chap astatine the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

“Asia has a agelong past and affluent acquisition successful dealing with kings and emperors, and this contented of showing respect and admiration towards leaders is profoundly rooted successful the region’s culture,” Gao told Al Jazeera.

Leaders elsewhere person besides been known to laic connected the flattery successful their dealings with Trump.

At a NATO acme successful June, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte likened Trump’s relation successful mediating tensions betwixt Israel and Iran to a “daddy” intervening successful a schoolyard brawl.

Trump’s ego has been a regular people of his critics, including those who person dealt with him extensively successful person.

“He volition ever enactment his ain interests and gratifying his ain ego up of everything else, including the country’s interest,” Bill Barr, Trump’s erstwhile lawyer general, said successful a 2023 interrogation with CBS News.

“There’s nary question astir it.”