SYDNEY ¨C Four days in Asia. That¡¯s all President Vladimir Putin of Russia needed to anger Washington, undermine Beijing and rattle a collection of Indo-Pacific nations already scrambling to cope with a jumbled world order.
After stops in Pyongyang, North Korea, and Hanoi, Vietnam, last week that were draped in communist red, Putin left behind a redrawn map of risk in Asia. North Korea sat at the center: a rogue nuclear state that regularly threatens its neighbors, suddenly empowered by Russian promises of sophisticated military aid and a mutual defense pact.
Putin also signed at least a dozen deals with Vietnam ¡ª a country of growing importance for both China and the United States as they vie for influence ¡ª where he insisted that ¡°reliable security architecture¡± could not be built with ¡°closed military-political blocs.¡±
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