Chinese president engages in charm offensive in Southeast Asia as U.S. tariffs rattle region [Video]

The timing couldn’t be better for Chinese President Xi Jinping as he wraps up a tour of three countries in Southeast Asia amid growing tariff pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“It’s a very smart move,” said Gil Lan, an associate professor in the law and business department at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Xi’s five-day visit to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia has been an effort to shore up allies and support within the region and present Beijing as a stable, reliable partner in the wake of sweeping tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month on countries around the world — including particularly high levies on the places in Southeast Asia that were on the Chinese leader’s itinerary.

“It’s a great opportunity for China to position itself at the helm of the world trading order. And that was an opportunity granted to it by the States,” Lan said.

The Chinese leader last visited Cambodia nine years ago and Malaysia 12 years ago.

On April 2, Trump …