{"id":70834,"date":"2022-03-01T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T19:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=70834"},"modified":"2022-03-09T11:40:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T00:40:29","slug":"indonesias-wholly-inadequate-response-to-russias-war-on-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indonesias-wholly-inadequate-response-to-russias-war-on-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia\u2019s wholly inadequate response to Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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No one who has observed Indonesian foreign and strategic policy probably needs reminding of how differently Jakarta sees and engages with the world to the way Australia does. But in responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s brutal and indefensible assault on Ukraine, Indonesia\u2019s foreign ministry has reminded us anyway.<\/p>\n

The official statement<\/a> from Indonesia\u2019s foreign ministry (Kemlu) is a masterpiece of its genre.<\/p>\n

The first two of its five points correctly affirm some fundamental concepts with which Australia and other like-minded nations can readily agree. They refer to the principles of the United Nations charter, \u2018including respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty\u2019, which Indonesia insists \u2018must continuously be upheld\u2019.<\/p>\n

The statement describes the military attack on Ukraine as \u2018unacceptable\u2019, and, given that nearly 200,000 invading troops replete with tanks, war planes and other instruments of death and destruction are staging it, makes the unarguable point that people\u2019s lives will be put \u2018in grave danger\u2019.<\/p>\n

With the same crystalline insight and logic, it asserts that the attack \u2018threatens regional as well as global peace and stability\u2019.<\/p>\n

So far, so good. But matters take a turn with points three and four of the statement.<\/p>\n

\u2018Indonesia calls\u2019, it proclaims, for \u2018this situation\u2019 to end and \u2018further calls on all parties to cease hostilities and put forward peaceful resolution through diplomacy\u2019.<\/p>\n

It \u2018urges\u2019 the UN Security Council to \u2018take concrete steps to prevent the situation from further deteriorating\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in the nature of the beast for diplomatic statements normally to be constrained, and therefore often inaccurate and inadequate as an expression of national sentiment. The phrasing of this one should not lead us to believe that President Joko Widodo, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and millions of Indonesians aren\u2019t as appalled about what\u2019s happened to Ukraine as any decent Australian. Jokowi\u2019s tweet, \u2018Stop war. War brings suffering to mankind and endangers the world\u2019, doubtless reflects his horror. And Marsudi at least tried to persuade her Russian counterpart<\/a> to resolve Russia\u2019s dispute with Ukraine through diplomacy.<\/p>\n

But statements have their purpose. They express policy, however vague and \u2018nuanced\u2019 that policy might be, and however wilfully opaque its expression. They matter in that sense.<\/p>\n

And any statement on the Ukraine crisis that, like Indonesia\u2019s, fails even to mention the word \u2018Russia\u2019 in it and to identify it as the aggressor is more than inadequate. As a statement of policy, it is fatuous and darkly risible.<\/p>\n

More to the point, it is disingenuous. The Jokowi administration surely knows that both sides aren\u2019t to blame for a war that Russia started and that Ukraine strove to avoid. To insist that Ukraine cease hostilities when it is only defending itself from the naked aggression of a revanchist tyrant is more than naive. It smacks of deliberate myopia.<\/p>\n

This is doubly the case coming from a country that places so much store in its own sovereignty and bridles at any threat to it, real or perceived.<\/p>\n

It also wouldn\u2019t have escaped Marsudi\u2019s attention that, notwithstanding the appeals of most of its members for Russia not to attack, the UN Security Council is hardly able to heed Indonesia\u2019s appeal to take concrete\u2014if undefined\u2014steps to stop Putin from making matters even worse when Russia is a permanent member of the council and happens to be its current president.<\/p>\n

In this context, it\u2019s worth remembering how Indonesia responded to news that Australia intended acquiring nuclear-powered submarines sometime in the distant future.<\/p>\n

It had no qualms then about identifying the villain of that piece in its eyes.<\/p>\n

The statement<\/a> it rushed out identified Australia by name four times and implied that Canberra was irresponsibly accelerating an arms race and being cavalier about its obligations under various international instruments, even though Australia has not violated any of them and has no intention of doing so when and if its boats sail.<\/p>\n

It had certainly not invaded its neighbour on the premise that it had no sovereignty by virtue of being only an error of history and thus having no right to exist.<\/p>\n

So, why is Indonesia again exemplifying the adage that there is none so blind as he who will not see\u2014or that there is none so mute as he who will not state the obvious?<\/p>\n

The answer as ever lies in a blend of policy orthodoxy and self-interest, as Kemlu spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah revealed in a press conference<\/a> on the matter.<\/p>\n

After being careful to condemn abstractly \u2018every act which is a clear violation of territorial integrity and sovereignty of a country\u2019, Faizasyah clarified that Indonesia had no intention of imposing sanctions (impliedly on Russia) because, \u2018We will not blindly follow the steps taken by another country.\u2019<\/p>\n

At first blush, this comment reflects Indonesia\u2019s oft-reiterated obedience to its \u2018free and active\u2019 foreign policy, albeit with a gratuitous, defensive tone in this case.<\/p>\n

But Faizasyah\u2019s subsequent remarks\u2014\u2018We will make a decision based on our domestic interests and \u2026 whether sanctions would solve anything\u2019\u2014betray the more transactional character of the Jokowi administration\u2019s foreign policy. And as he went on to explain, \u2018We see time and time again that sanctions do not mean the resolution of a particular issue.\u2019<\/p>\n

The interests Faizasyah referred to weren\u2019t specified but were presumably economic in the main, irrespective of how realistic Indonesia\u2019s hopes for Russia in that domain might be. Last June, Indonesia\u2019s trade minister, Muhammad Lutfi, followed Jokowi\u2019s instructions to boost trade with the country\u2019s non-traditional partners by visiting Russia<\/a> for bilateral talks as well as a meeting with the Eurasian Economic Union. And while Moscow remains far from being among Jakarta\u2019s largest trading partners, bilateral trade has grown significantly in recent years, with palm oil making up 40% of Indonesia\u2019s exports to Russia.<\/p>\n

Indonesia has also been keen to attract Russian investment, and the two countries have been exploring cooperation on Covid-19 vaccine production<\/a>. And as any visitor to Bali in recent years can confirm, flows of Russian tourists to the centrepiece of Indonesia\u2019s tourism sector, which the Jokowi administration is desperate to revive after Covid, have been among the heaviest from anywhere (nearly 160,000 arrived in 2019<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Indonesia\u2013Russia defence ties have also long been significant, notwithstanding Jakarta\u2019s decision to drop<\/a> Russian Sukhois from its options for new fighter jets. Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto\u2019s hosting of the first-ever ASEAN\u2013Russia joint maritime exercise<\/a> last December in Indonesian waters\u00a0 underscored the Jokowi administration\u2019s interest in consolidating a relationship with a power that has served as an important source of weaponry for Jakarta and many of its ASEAN colleagues.<\/p>\n

If nothing else, after Putin\u2019s assault on Ukraine, hopefully Jokowi will at least be more circumspect in his public remarks about Russia and its place in the Indo-Pacific region. Last year, he pretended that Russia might play a positive role through its ASEAN ties in strengthening \u2018strategic trust\u2019 in Southeast Asia, \u2018maintaining stability, peace and prosperity\u2019 and mitigating the risk of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

And, ideally, at least a few other eyes across ASEAN are no longer so ready to blind themselves to reality, as was evidently the case at last September\u2019s Russia\u2013ASEAN summit. The joint communiqu\u00e9 proclaiming both parties\u2019 commitment to the principles of \u2018a rules-based framework\u2019, \u2018respect for sovereignty\u2019 and \u2018respect for international law\u2019 now looks even less in synch with the truth than many others.<\/p>\n

But Australia should have no delusions about where Indonesia, along with other ASEAN nations and our Quad partner India<\/a>, will stand when it comes to taking whatever \u2018concrete steps\u2019 are feasible in responding to Russia\u2019s brutal repudiation of the very principles to which Jakarta claims such adherence.<\/p>\n

And of the lessons Canberra should draw from this, two should be the most obvious.<\/p>\n

The first is that if Indonesia is not even prepared openly to condemn Putin\u2019s Russia for attacking Ukraine, it will certainly do nothing, even rhetorically, that might jeopardise its \u2018domestic interests\u2019 should China attack Taiwan. Those interests far exceed any Indonesia has in Russia.<\/p>\n

The second is that while we can and should keep working to make the most of our comprehensive strategic partnership with Indonesia, Australia should remain clear-eyed about just how truly \u2018strategic\u2019 a partner Indonesia is set to be for the foreseeable future, and deal with it accordingly.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, we\u2019ll be as detached from reality as any statement<\/a> about Russia\u2019s being a \u2018buffer of stability and peace\u2019 or that calls for Ukraine to give peace a chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one who has observed Indonesian foreign and strategic policy probably needs reminding of how differently Jakarta sees and engages with the world to the way Australia does. But in responding to Russian President Vladimir …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1241,"featured_media":70836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,285,8,163,365,714],"class_list":["post-70834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-foreign-policy","tag-indonesia","tag-russia","tag-trade","tag-ukraine","dinkus-russia-ukraine-war"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIndonesia\u2019s wholly inadequate response to Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indonesias-wholly-inadequate-response-to-russias-war-on-ukraine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indonesia\u2019s wholly inadequate response to Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No one who has observed Indonesian foreign and strategic policy probably needs reminding of how differently Jakarta sees and engages with the world to the way Australia does. 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