Amid big power games, Asia’s bamboos bend, and bend again

Ever since Mr Vladimir Putin

departed for home after visits to North Korea

and Vietnam, there has been much hand-wringing that the Russian President, who has an arrest warrant against him issued by the International Criminal Court, should have so effortlessly cut a diplomatic path through a vital corner of Asia.

Perhaps it should be interpreted as no more than two Asian powers playing off the prevailing winds to create more strategic elbow room for themselves, and using a weakened global power for that purpose.