THE 24th Asean Summit, held in Myanmar, on Saturday and Sunday, closed with the 10-country association showing that it has become a group willing to become vassals of the People’s Republic of China.

The most shamefaced advertisement of this willingness to kowtow to the Communist-Party-ruled China—which has been behaving as if it were ancient Imperial China that made vassals of the smaller kingdoms around it—is the joint statement of the 10 heads of state at the end of the Summit.