In Beijing, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn renewed a diplomatic compact that has long defined the region's uneasy equilibrium — affirming shared language around peace and cooperation while the harder questions of maritime conduct and territorial claim remain, as they have for decades, just beneath the surface of agreement. The meeting reflects a recurring pattern in Southeast Asian diplomacy: the careful cultivation of institutional trust as a hedge against the friction that geography and ambition inevitably produce. Both sides spoke of a shared futu