US-ASEAN summit an ominous development for regional democracy and human rights

During the Cold War, the US and its Western allies proved more than willing to put their commitments to human rights and democracy on hold in the name of self-interest and anti-communism. In Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, wherever there was superpower competition, there was the trumping of democracy by "the national interest", a slippery term that usually just meant not losing to the presumed machinations of Moscow.