Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric has had Asia wondering this year if the US would reduce its engagement in the region. The summit between Trump and Xi Jinping, closely followed for clues to America’s Asia policy, proved to be a delicate first step in the interaction between the world’s two most powerful men.

The cautious tango between Xi and Trump has so far failed to paper over China-US differences on the South China Sea, the main theatre of the region’s geopolitics where old contestations run up against new realities. While China’s race up the global pecking order and the possibility of an American retrenchment reshape the policy dynamics in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Pakistan and Thailand, fears of an ascendant China plague its relations with countries like Japan, Singapore and South Korea.

Trump has now widened the conventional arena of geopolitical competition to include the Indian Ocean, drawing in India into disputes that were once confined to the Pacific. As this comes amid moves by the US, Australia, India and Japan to revive a coalition of “like-minded” democracies, China naturally sees it as the latest attempt to contain it. More so because its relations with India have rapidly declined this year after years of careful rapprochement.

The two Asian giants found themselves facing off near Bhutan for over two months this summer in an unusual show of defiance that threatened to spiral into armed conflict. As China’s growing economic interests expand its footprint westwards, the new tension with India is a throwback to the friction during the colonial period and the 1962 war that continues to poison their relations.

The open enmity between the two nations that once called themselves brothers was not the only family drama playing out in the region this year. In Singapore, the first family was at war with itself as a dispute between Lee Kuan Yew’s children over his property and legacy spilled into the open in an ugly display of sibling rivalry.

While the Brothers Lee were slugging it out in Singapore, in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte, high on power, launched his own war – on drugs – that ravaged his country and reshaped his relations with China and the US. In India, the lasting impact of another war, waged by Narendra Modi on cash, became clearer this year. The unexpected move roiled the Indian economy and, as This Week in Asia had predicted, punctured his reputation as a smart economic manager. And, Myanmar embarked on a war on its own people. Over 600,000 Rohingya fled the country as Myanmese armed forces massacred village after village of Rohingya Muslims, causing an unprecedented humanitarian and refugee crisis, as well as raising fears about an upsurge of Islamist sentiments in the region.

Islam’s power as a lightning rod had already become evident in Indonesia this year, as blasphemy charges against Christian ethnic Chinese Jakarta governor Ahok exposed the ethno-religious divisions that could be stoked for political mobilisation. This Week in Asia extensively covered this important development and its implications for President Joko Widodo, race relations and the stability of the region.

Which brings us back to the many things we got right in 2017. The South China Morning Post and This Week in Asia stood out in their coverage of the biggest political event in China this year, namely, the 19th Party Congress, being the only publication in the world that correctly predicted who would make it to the apex Politburo Standing Committee and why. It’s not for nothing that the Post is considered the window to China – and This Week in Asia has emerged as the leading voice on the wider region in a little over a year.