The three major summits of world leaders held across Asia last week made one thing clear: Vladimir Putin is now on the sidelines on the world stage.
Putin, whose attack on Ukraine over the past nine months has devastated the European country and rocked the global economy, refused to attend any of the diplomatic gatherings – and instead faced significant criticism as international opposition to his war seemed to to harden.
A meeting of Group of 20 (G20) leaders in Bali earlier this week ended with a statement echoing the nations’ positions expressed in other forums, including a UN resolution condemning “in the strongest terms” Russian aggression against Ukraine, while noting different projections.
And as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit wraps up in Bangkok on Saturday, the leaders of its 21 economies appear poised to potentially utter a similar expression.
On Friday, the foreign ministers of those economies agreed for the first time after months of meetings and discussions on their own joint statement, which echoed verbatim language made in Bali earlier this week — and paves the way for APEC leaders to they do the same as their meeting ends on Saturday.
“Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing enormous human suffering and exacerbating existing weaknesses in the global economy,” the document said, adding that there were differing “assessments” of the situation within the group.
As well as the discussions within the summits, the week also showed Putin – who is believed to have launched his invasion in a bid to restore Russia’s supposed former glory – as increasingly isolated, with the Russian leader found in Moscow and not even wanting to face his counterparts. global meetings.
Fear of possible political maneuvering against him if he leaves the capital, an obsession with personal security and a desire to avoid confrontational scenes at summits – especially as Russia faces heavy losses on the battlefield – were all likely calculations that went into in Putin’s estimation. , according to Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Meanwhile, he may not want to draw unwanted attention to the few nations that have remained friendly to Russia, for example India and China, whose leaders Putin saw at a summit in Uzbekistan in September.
“He doesn’t want to be that toxic guy,” Gabuev said.
But even among countries that have not adopted a hard line against Russia, there are signs of losing patience, if not with Russia itself, then with the negative consequences of its aggression. Stressed energy, food security issues and spiraling global inflation are now squeezing economies around the world.
Indonesia, which hosted the G20, has not explicitly condemned Russia for the invasion, but its President Joko Widodo told world leaders on Tuesday “we must end the war”.
India, which has been a key buyer of Russian energy even as the West has shied away from Russian fuel in recent months, also reiterated its call to “find a way to get back on track with the ceasefire” at the G20. The summit’s final statement includes a phrase that says, “Today’s age should not be warlike,” language that echoes what Modi told Putin in September when they met on the sidelines of a regional security summit in Uzbekistan.
It is less clear whether China, whose strategic partnership with Russia is bolstered by a close relationship between leader Xi Jinping and Putin, has changed its stance. Beijing has long refused to condemn the invasion or even refer to it as such. Instead, he condemned Western sanctions and bolstered Kremlin talking points by blaming the US and NATO for the conflict, although that rhetoric appears to be returning somewhat in state-controlled domestic media in recent months.
On the sidelines of meetings with Western leaders last week, however, Xi reiterated China’s call for a dialogue ceasefire and, according to reports from his interlocutors, agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – but those remarks are not included in China account of the talks.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi later told Chinese state media that Xi reiterated China’s position in his meeting with US President Joe Biden that “nuclear weapons cannot be used and nuclear war cannot be fought”.
But observers of China’s foreign policy say its desire to maintain strong ties with Russia likely remains unwavering.
“While these statements are an indirect criticism of Vladimir Putin, I don’t think they are aimed at distancing China from Russia,” said Brian Hart, a fellow at the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Si says these things to an audience that wants to hear them.”
Russian isolation, however, appears even more acute amid Xi’s diplomatic tour of Bali and Bangkok this week.
Although the Biden administration has labeled Beijing – not Moscow – the “most serious long-term challenge” to the world order, Xi has been seen as a valued global partner by Western leaders, many of whom have met with the Chinese leader for talks aimed at increasing communication and collaboration.
In an impassioned plea for peace addressed to a meeting of business leaders held alongside the APEC summit in Bangkok on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to draw a distinction between Russia’s actions and tensions with China.
While referring to US-China rivalry and the growing standoff in Asia’s regional waters, Macron said: “What makes this war different is that it is an attack against international norms. All countries … have stability because of international rules,” before calling on Russia to “return to the table” and “respect the international order.”
The urgency of that sentiment was heightened when a Russian-made missile landed in Poland, killing two people on Wednesday, the final day of the G20 summit. As a NATO member, a threat to Polish security could trigger a response from the entire bloc.
The situation defused after the initial investigation that the missile came from the Ukrainian side in an accident during missile defense – but underlined the potential for a miscalculation to spark a world war.
A day after this situation, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken demonstrated what he called a “split screen”.
“What we see is a very characteristic split-screen: as the world works to help the most vulnerable people, Russia is targeting them. as leaders around the world reaffirmed our commitment to the United Nations Charter and international rules that benefit all our people. President Putin continues to try to undermine these same principles,” Blinken told reporters Thursday night in Bangkok.
Heading into the week of international meetings, the US and its allies were ready to project that message to their international counterparts. And while strong messages have been given, gathering consensus around this view has not been easy – and differences remain.
The G20 statement and the ministerial-level statement from APEC acknowledge the differences between how members voted at the UN to support its resolution “deploring” Russian aggression, and say that while most members “condemned strongly” the war, “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”.
Even making such an expression with reservations was an arduous process at both summits, according to officials. Indonesia’s Jokowi said G20 leaders were up until “midnight” to discuss the Ukraine paragraph.
The nations in the groups have various geostrategic and economic relationships with Russia, which affect their positions. But another concern some Asian nations may have is whether the moves to censure Russia are part of a US push to weaken Moscow, according to former Thai foreign minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon.
“Countries say we don’t want to be just a pawn in this game to be used to weaken another power,” said Suphamongkhon, a member of the RAND Corporation Center for Asia Pacific Policy (CAPP) advisory board. Instead, the censure of Russia around “the violation of international law and the war crimes that may have been committed” would hit on aspects of the situation that “everyone here rejects,” he said.
Russia’s rejection along these lines may also send a message to China, which itself defied an international ruling challenging its territorial claims in the South China Sea and has vowed to “reunify” with the self-ruled republic of Taiwan. which he never controls, by force if necessary.
While the efforts this week may have increased pressure on Putin, the Russian leader has experience with such dynamics: before Putin’s ouster over Ukraine’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Group of Seven (G7) was the of the Eight – and it remains to be seen whether international expressions will have an impact.
But without Putin in the fold, leaders stressed this week, the suffering will continue – and there will be a hole in the international system.
