“We refuse to be a pawn in a new cold war,” says Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia. Jokowi, as he is known, speaks during an interview at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. It’s a surprisingly tough message from a leader known for his forgiving style.
Next week, the Indonesian president will host what feels like the first global summit of a second Cold War – the G20 leaders’ meeting in Bali. This is the first G20 summit since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. It is also the first since tensions between the US and China rose following the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August.
Widodo has been President of Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation in the world, since 2014. But he stands in stark contrast to strong rulers like Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. Dressed simply in a white shirt, black trousers and sneakers made in Indonesia, he says his main goal at the G20 is to promote dialogue. “We are very concerned about escalating tensions between major powers.”
In an attempt to remain neutral in an emerging superpower conflict, Indonesia is drawing on an older tradition. She played a key role in founding the non-aligned movement at the 1955 Bandung Conference during the first Cold War. The underlying instinct of Indonesia and many other non-Western nations gathering in Bali remains the same — to manage tensions between the superpowers and avoid aligning with either camp.
Much of the pre-summit talk has focused on Putin and Biden sitting in the same conference room. But Widodo says he has a strong impression that the Russian leader will not attend the Bali summit, based on a conversation he had with Putin last week. There is talk of Putin potentially making a virtual appearance at the G20. But Widodo shrugs when presented with the idea (and no doubt Americans would do their best to keep Putin mute).
For the US, the bigger focus is on Xi, who is definitely coming to Bali. The current assumption is that the Chinese leader will hold a face-to-face meeting with Biden. Some senior US officials see this as an opportunity “to ground relations.” But it’s also entirely possible that a face-to-face meeting would be acrimonious and unsuccessful.
Unlike other US-China summits in recent decades that have come after months of preparation, a Biden-Xi meeting in Bali would materialize at the last moment, with no carefully canned announcements to give a sense of progress. A US leader compares it to the US-Soviet summits of the first Cold War – high-stakes meetings that took place on neutral soil.
The stakes are also high for Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. They have gained great prosperity through decades of peace and prosperity in the region, backed by a stable security environment and strong economic growth in China. That formula still works for Indonesia, which is expected to grow well over 5 percent this year – making its country the fastest-growing economy in the G20, according to Widodo.
The desire for lasting geopolitical stability that enables economic growth also characterizes Widodo’s attitude to the Ukraine war. As President of the G20, he traveled to both Kyiv and Moscow. But for Indonesians, the war in Ukraine is not the all-consuming preoccupation it is for Western leaders. Much of Widodo’s attention is focused on the second order economic impact of the war and the impact it is having on global food prices. He describes the recent (now withdrawn) Russian threat to stop grain exports across the Black Sea as “very provocative”.
Due to his recent talks with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Widodo sees little immediate prospect of a peaceful solution. Instead, Indonesia is throwing its diplomatic energy at resolving a conflict in its own backyard — Myanmar’s civil war, which has also claimed thousands of lives and turned hundreds of thousands into refugees.
As a leader, Widodo shares some similarities with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the recently re-elected President of Brazil. Both the Indonesian and Brazilian leaders come from humble backgrounds and pride themselves on their connections with ordinary people. Both want good relations with the US, but retain an innate skepticism about American motives, rooted in their own countries’ histories.
Widodo is doing a similar balancing act with China. He knows that Chinese trade and investment are key to developing Indonesia’s economy. But he also knows there are domestic critics – including Jusuf Kalla, his own former vice president – who claim China has too much clout in Indonesia. Widodo dismisses this by pointing to the large number of jobs for Indonesians that have been created by Chinese investments.
Geopolitically, Indonesia remains something of a sleeping giant. Despite the country’s enormous size and geographical breadth (spanning four time zones), Widodo shows no trace of aspirations for superpower or even regional Southeast Asian hegemony. Instead, he prefers to emphasize his country’s commitment to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
In an era of strongman politics and aggressive great-power nationalism, the Indonesian leader’s modesty and multilateralism make a refreshing change. It would be good if some of that spirit rubbed off on the other G20 leaders.