{"id":71475,"date":"2022-03-25T14:33:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T03:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=71475"},"modified":"2022-03-25T14:33:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T03:33:05","slug":"russia-should-not-be-allowed-in-this-years-festival-of-summits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/russia-should-not-be-allowed-in-this-years-festival-of-summits\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia should not be allowed in this year\u2019s festival of summits"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The fictional British prime minister Jim Hacker once opined that summits were public relations circuses offering less scope for negotiating solutions to international problems than state funerals.<\/p>\n

That might be harsh. But a spate of leaders\u2019 meetings in Southeast Asia in November could prove Hacker right if Russian President Vladimir Putin or one of his minions attends them.<\/p>\n

Of these, the G20 leaders\u2019 meeting in Bali is so far attracting the most attention.<\/p>\n

As host, Indonesia has a profound interest in the summit being a success irrespective of the global ructions that Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has generated. It wants to use the occasion to promote President Joko \u2018Jokowi\u2019 Widodo\u2019s agenda of economic development and champion the interests of emerging and developing economies in the post-pandemic global economy.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Jakarta intends to adhere to its pre-invasion agenda of global health architecture, a sustainable energy transition and digital transformation, themes dear to emerging economies like Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Nor is Jakarta alone in hoping that the G20 will proceed in a parallel universe to that now dominated by images of destroyed cities and dead children. Russia certainly does.<\/p>\n

China, too, is cheering Indonesia on. Foreign Minister Wang Yi had reportedly urged his<\/a> Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, not to allow Ukraine to be discussed at the G20 leaders\u2019 summit. China\u2019s foreign ministry spokesperson reiterated<\/a> that the G20 was not an appropriate place to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, echoing Indonesia\u2019s argument that the forum was designed for promoting multilateral economic cooperation.<\/p>\n

That the G20 is ostensibly an economic grouping, not a political and strategic one, is undeniable. But that ignores the fact that security issues have been on earlier G20 agendas and that the economic consequences of what\u2019s happening are immense and globally disruptive. To argue that Ukraine can\u2019t be on the G20\u2019s agenda now is to ignore the searing reality that effectively it already is.<\/p>\n

Jakarta\u2019s position also ignores the fact that most other G20 nations don\u2019t share it, and that were hypothetically the summit to proceed as normal, its chances of achieving anything on its agenda would be zero.\u00a0 If summits are public relations circuses, this big top promises to be one presided over by a ringmaster hollering about telecommunications infrastructure in Kalimantan while more than half of the performers are busy fending off a crazed lion with whips and chairs. Indonesia\u2019s reputation would be stained in the process.<\/p>\n

This reality may now have dawned on Jokowi. Presumably he hasn\u2019t ignored the interventions<\/a> of US President Joe Biden, European leaders and others like Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison calling for Russia to be kicked out of the G20 and saying that Russia\u2019s presence in Bali would be \u2018highly problematic\u2019 for them.<\/p>\n

Jokowi may well be hoping that Putin solves this problem simply by staying away. Perhaps he\u2019s hoping that China\u2019s Xi Jinping and India\u2019s Narendra Modi will help him out by persuading Putin to sit it out with promises that they will look after Russia\u2019s interests and ensure Ukraine doesn\u2019t raise its head.<\/p>\n

But should the rest of us accept such a quid pro quo just to hold a meeting that ostensibly exists to deal with global economic problems of the kind Putin\u2019s invasion has caused?<\/p>\n

And would Putin agree, risking a message to his own citizens that their country had been ostracised for bad behaviour rather than applauded for slaughtering \u2018Nazis\u2019? It\u2019s just as likely Putin won\u2019t deny himself the psychotic satisfaction of thumbing his nose at his enemies. According to his ambassador in Jakarta<\/a>, he intends to go\u2014perhaps virtually or in Lavrovian form if his fear of absenting himself from Moscow or being in closer proximity to the coronavirus deterred him from the trip. In that event, Jokowi shouldn\u2019t expect to be greeting most of the other G20 leaders.<\/p>\n

And if indeed the European leaders and others boycotted, Australia\u2019s leader should do so too. That might cause offence in Jakarta, though none would be intended. Canberra would need to manage this properly, advising Jakarta of its decision before telling the rest of the world. But given that the absence of most of the world\u2019s largest economies would make the meeting pointless, despatching our prime minister or a senior minister to Bali in such circumstances would achieve nothing while being morally indefensible.<\/p>\n

So, if Indonesia really wants to benefit from hosting the world\u2019s premier economic forum, it should do more than just pray that Russia stays away. Since it would need a consensus of the membership to deny Moscow a place at the table, it should at least be urging China, India and perhaps others to agree to disinviting it. It should not, in effect, be siding with China\u2019s line<\/a> that Russia could not and should not be kicked out of the G20 or buying its absurd pitch that Russia\u2019s presence would make for \u2018true multilateralism\u2019 and \u2018strengthen solidarity and cooperation\u2019.<\/p>\n

The same applies equally to Thailand, this year\u2019s APEC host. Like Jakarta\u2019s plans for the G20, Bangkok\u2019s goals for APEC go to post-Covid economic resiliency. Like the Indonesians, the Thais and the APEC secretariat seem determined to proceed as if the war in Ukraine had never happened.<\/p>\n

But should Putin insist on attending APEC and be welcomed, those economies that seem set on taking a stand against Russia in Bali are hardly likely to behave differently in Bangkok. Others, like New Zealand, would likely join them. And if so, is a summit missing the leaders of most of APEC\u2019s largest economies one that Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha would be content to host?<\/p>\n

If she isn\u2019t already, Australia\u2019s Foreign Minister Marise Payne should be losing no more time in getting this message across to her Indonesian and Thai counterparts and urging them to change course. It shouldn\u2019t be too taxing. She can cut and paste her talking points for each brief.<\/p>\n

The third of these events, the East Asia Summit, is more complicated story. The EAS is different to the other two institutions. Most of its members are ASEAN states. It operates under ASEAN\u2019s auspices. ASEAN runs it. Only ASEAN members can host it.<\/p>\n

ASEAN couldn\u2019t even bring itself to condemn Russia for the invasion. Two of its members, Vietnam and Laos, joined with China and India in abstaining on a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia\u2019s action. Only Singapore has voiced explicit condemnation and joined in levelling sanctions against Russia. Persuading ASEAN\u2019s current rotating chair\u2014Cambodia, whose own autocratic leader has enjoyed ties to Moscow stretching back to the 1970s\u2014to preclude Russia\u2019s presence therefore seems the most quixotic quest of them all.<\/p>\n

That shouldn\u2019t deter Payne from lobbying her Cambodian equivalent with the same message as before, as well as other key ASEAN partners.<\/p>\n

If ASEAN persists in inviting Russia to the East Asia Summit, however, Australia\u2019s response needs a different calibration to its G20 and APEC settings.<\/p>\n

The EAS has an enduring salience for Australia\u2019s interests in its most strategically critical region that the other institutions lack. It may be less important in Australia\u2019s strategic calculus now than was a decade ago. It is no substitute for harder forms of deterrence and the likes of the Quad, AUKUS and ANZUS. But it still offers the most important regional diplomatic adjunct to what is currently a defence-heavy strategy for navigating the dangerous uncertainties of the Indo-Pacific\u2019s future. It is destined is to remain the only plurilateral avenue for diplomatic dialogue and mediation in East Asia that might mitigate the risks of conflict.<\/p>\n

Boycotting the EAS in protest at Russia\u2019s presence should therefore be off Canberra\u2019s options list. Doing so would achieve nothing while flaring ASEAN members\u2019 doubts about our commitment to regional diplomacy and reducing any influence we have in it. Ceding this turf to China would be most imprudent.<\/p>\n

But however much the ASEAN states might wish otherwise, such an eventuality would not make for meetings filled with the spirit of amity and cooperation. And nor should it.<\/p>\n

They should expect some of us to attend with chairs and whips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fictional British prime minister Jim Hacker once opined that summits were public relations circuses offering less scope for negotiating solutions to international problems than state funerals. That might be harsh. But a spate of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1241,"featured_media":71477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[672,467,163,714,744],"class_list":["post-71475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-g20","tag-multilateralism","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-vladimir-putin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRussia should not be allowed in this year\u2019s festival of summits | 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\/russia-should-not-be-allowed-in-this-years-festival-of-summits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia should not be allowed in this year\u2019s festival of summits | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The fictional British prime minister Jim Hacker once opined that summits were public relations circuses offering less scope for negotiating solutions to international problems than state funerals. 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