China tries to stop questions about Ukraine stance by asking G20 not to discuss war

Indonesia, which holds the G20 presidency, is relutanct to anger Russia but is also under pressure from the US. Photo: AFP
Beijing is lobbying Indonesia to take the conflict off the agenda at the group’s summit in Bali, saying it should stick to economic matters
China’s public fence-sitting is proving to be a diplomatic headache amid growing scrutiny of its close relationship with Russia




21 Mar 2022

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi began the efforts during a telephone conversation with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi on Monday, when he emphasised that the G20 should be the “premier forum for international economic cooperation”.
Echoing an Indonesian diplomat who said last week the Ukraine conflict was not a suitable topic for the summit’s agenda, Wang said China would support Indonesia, which holds the G20 presidency, in “removing disruptions and steadily advancing the established agenda for dialogue and cooperation”.
The following day Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian followed up, saying the G20 was “not an appropriate platform to discuss political security issues such as Ukraine”.

Then President Xi Jinping weighed in on Wednesday, urging his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo during a phone call to stick to his plans to focus on post-Covid economic recovery at the Bali summit.


Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo spoke to Xi Jinping by phone this week. Photo: Reuters

In response, Widodo, who has previously expressed concern about the war’s economic impact, promised to work with Beijing “to make sure that the G20 focuses its work on economic recovery and global development”, according to Chinese state media reports.

Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, said Beijing did not regard the G20 as a fitting platform to discuss issues of war and peace, much less coordinate sanctions against Russia, a move many observers expected.

He said there was a good chance that the Bali gathering would become the first multilateral forum Xi has attended since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but Russian President Vladimir Putin was unlikely to attend.

“China wants to preserve the integrity of multilateral groupings like the G20, Apec etc. as fora for development rather than stages for cold war squabbles. Xi does not want to be the lightning rod, taking the heat from the majority of the other members over Russia’s actions and China’s position on the war,” he said.

China insists it is impartial on the Ukraine crisis, although its refusal to criticise Moscow’s aggression and its state-controlled media’s pro-Russia coverage have widely been perceived as tacit support for Putin.

Its ambivalent messages prompted US national security adviser Jake Sullivan to issue a warning during a meeting with Xi’s top foreign policy aide Yang Jiechi in Rome this week, saying there would be “severe consequences” if China tried to help Moscow evade Western sanctions.

Yun Sun, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre in Washington, said China’s domestic considerations, especially the impending once-in-a-decade personnel changes in the leadership, loomed large in Beijing’s thoughts.

“The 20th Communist Party congress is coming. China doesn’t want any issue from the foreign policy arena to potentially disrupt tranquillity and stability on the domestic political event,” she said.

George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, also attributed Beijing’s reluctance to discuss Ukraine at a multilateral forum to its increasingly difficult hedging on the war.

“Frankly, it must now be an embarrassment to Beijing to have allowed itself to have become so closely tied to and complicit with Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine,” he said.

“Since the G20 is a global governance institution, it is of course entirely appropriate for the G20 to consider and debate the war’s status and consequences but China would prefer this not to be aired in public, and certainly not so close to the 20th party congress.”

The G20, whose members include the United States, China and Russia as well as other major and developing economies, was founded in the late 1990s as a platform to strengthen global governance and cooperation, but it is not uncommon for global crises to dominate its annual gathering.

In the past decade, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the war in Syria and North Korea’s nuclear provocations have topped the agenda at its summits.


According to Xu Liping, a researcher from the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the conversation between the Chinese and Indonesian leaders suggests Jakarta has been under pressure from the West over Ukraine.

“I think [Widodo] tried to send a message that the host country is unwilling to allow the summit to be distracted by discussions over the Ukraine crisis,” he said.

Like other Southeast Asian countries, Jakarta, which voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution on March 2 to denounce Moscow’s aggression, does not want to be seen as taking sides between the warring nations.

“There are similarities between China and Indonesia when it comes to their approach on bringing Ukraine up at the G20, especially considering how awkward it could be to discuss the Ukraine war when Russia is expected to be in the same room,” Xu said.

He noted Indonesia could not afford to distance China, its biggest trading partner and a top investor, because its economic reliance on Beijing had significantly increased since the coronavirus pandemic.

Zhang Mingliang, a Southeast Asian affairs specialist at Jinan University in Guangzhou, also said China might see Jakarta’s balancing act between Russia and the West as an opportunity to expand its influence in the region, already caught in the middle of Washington-Beijing rivalry.

“It’s not surprising that Indonesia tries to remain neutral on such divisive issues and the leaders in Jakarta are shrewd enough to know how to avoid taking sides when major powers are at odds,” he said.

The Ukraine conflict is already threatening to overshadow Indonesia’s G20 presidency with doubts about Russia’s participation growing.

Ukraine is Indonesia’s largest supplier of wheat and Jakarta has also been keen to develop investment and energy ties with Russia, which is also a top arms supplier.

While China may want to consolidate ties with its Southeast Asian neighbours and pull them away from the US, Zhang cautioned that there were limits to Beijing’s sway over regional powers such as Indonesia.

“Jakarta is risk-averse and I don’t think it will risk confrontation with the West, which obviously wants to play up the Ukraine issue at the G20,” he said.

If the war dragged on, it would be unthinkable not to include such a global crisis in the Bali gathering later this year, he added.

Magnus also warned that although China was eager to influence and shape global governance institutions, “any attempt to pressure the Jakarta presidency of the G20 on the agenda speaks to poor statecraft”.

He added: “So my view is that the presidency will also be listening to other members who think it’s important to put Ukraine on the table.”

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...mpaign=3171043

Wah Indonesia ternyata ditekan barat soal G20 soal Ukrina menurut Xu Liping. Apa pake isu Papua, sawit dan pelanggaran ham?

Kalau Presiden Jokowi dan Bu Retno kayaknya fokus ke isu utama G20 pemulihan dunia dan berusaha tak melibatkan isu perang. Di pertemuan parlemen dunia sekarang di Nusa Dua isu Ukrina mau dibahas delegasi Eropa tapi ditolak Indonesia kata Fadli Zon karena Indonesia punya proposal mendamaikan kedua belah pihak tanpa mendiskreditkan Rusia.

berat juga tahun ini untuk Indonesia karena konflik AS+Eropa vs Rusia.