Donald Trump still has no proper Asia policy

HOW is Asia policy made in Washington? The trite answer is by Donald Trump’s Asia hands waking up each day and checking the president’s tweets. The answer from Mr Trump’s officials is that not all Mr Trump’s pronouncements on Asia should be taken literally. They say the old alliances with Japan and South Korea still stand (despite Trumpian grumbling), and that America still believes in upholding an international order in which Asia has prospered. And despite the president’s infatuation with strongmen, America—they say—really doesn’t think leaders should gun down suspected drug-dealers. An anonymous official wrote last week in the New York Times of a “steady state” pushing back against chaos and misrule in the White House. Many Asia hands would consider themselves such defenders of stability.