As Biden’s Presidency Wanes, U.S. and Asian Nations Do a Delicate Dance

On an epic trip, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken tried to reassure Asian leaders about American commitments. But China remains the enduring backyard behemoth.

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During the trip, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, injected some confidence into U.S. military alliances with Japan and the Philippines.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s sprint across Asia last week — six nations in six days — ended with a neigh-borly gesture in Mongolia.

During a traditional outdoor display of wrestling, archery and equestrianism in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, the prime minister presented Mr. Blinken with a horse.

Mr. Blinken named his new companion Frontier, and the prime minister snapped a horse selfie. It appeared to be a sign of the country’s unalloyed bond with the United States, which officials in both countries call a “third neighbor” of Mongolia, an alternative to China and Russia next door.

Other U.S. officials have received gifts of horses from Mongolia — Celtic was given to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Victory to President Donald J. Trump and Montana to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. And like them, Mr. Blinken did not take his horse home across the Pacific, a reminder that the United States does not actually border Mongolia, the way China and Russia do.

Mongolia operates in a multipolar world, not in the triumphalist moment that America briefly enjoyed in the post-Cold War era.

Just weeks before Mr. Blinken’s visit, the nation in the high steppes of Central Asia held an annual peacekeeping exercise, called Khaan Quest, in which it hosted Chinese soldiers, as well as troops from the United States, Turkey, India, Japan, South Korea and Qatar.

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