Southeast Asian States Have Their Own Views on the Ukraine War

Abstract

J ust as Southeast Asia has emerged as the center of gravity for the countries of the global West’s respective Indo-Pacific strategies, so too has the region become a priority area for Western diplomacy on the Russia-Ukraine war. Since the start of the conflict, the United States, in particular, has lobbied Southeast Asian states and the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to condemn Russia’s aggression and to comply with Western sanctions against Moscow. In May 2022, for example, the Biden administration raised the Ukraine war in discussions with Southeast Asian leaders at their summit in Washington and tried to insert language in a joint U.S.-ASEAN vision statement criticizing Russia’s militarism, ultimately having to settle instead for more vague language on support for territorial sovereignty and international law.1 Similarly, in 2022, the entire Western cohort of the G-20 pressured then host Indonesia to include language criticizing Russia’s invasion in the group’s joint statement. According to one European sous-sherpa involved in the statement’s drafting, China and India also partially supported this language, which therefore made it possible to include.2 In at least one instance, however, European leaders were unable to bring their Southeast Asian counterparts on side with their criticism of Russia. In a December 2022 joint statement following an EU-ASEAN summit, negotiators failed to draft a common critique of Russia’s actions.3 Neither have Western leaders had much success in securing Southeast Asian state support in condemnation of the war at the bilateral level, aside from Singapore, which is unique in the region for its relative acceptance