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UNSC resolution on Myanmar a vote of confidence in Jokowi
A good relationship with Jokowi may have been the reason Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin abstained from, rather than vetoed, the recent UNSC resolution.
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Change of guard: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (right) accepts a gavel from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen as the ASEAN chairmanship is passed to Indonesia at the closing ceremony of the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits in Phnom Penh on Nov. 13, 2022. (AFP/Nhac Nguyen)
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has awarded a rare bit of political capital to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as this year’s rotary chair of ASEAN, specifically in dealing with Myanmar junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who always believes veto holders China and Russia will jump to his defense.
The UNSC decided to entrust ASEAN with leading the international effort to end the junta’s brutal repression of the Myanmar people and abide by the five-point consensus Hlaing and ASEAN leaders agreed upon in April 2021. Hlaing faced significant pressure to release democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi unconditionally, but the general mocked the UNSC by extending the jail term for Suu Kyi to 33 years, meaning the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner may spend the rest of her life in prison.
President Jokowi should not take the UNSC’s decision for granted, because just one day after the resolution was issued, Thailand hosted a meeting of five Mekong River countries – Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar – in Bangkok, in a clear show of support for the Myanmar junta. They are all are ASEAN members that supported the five-point consensus.
Holding the Group of 20 presidency in 2022 and hosting its summit last November helped Jokowi get better acquainted with the leaders of the five veto holders and permanent members of the UNSC. The P5 are also members of the G20.
I strongly believe that a good relationship with Jokowi was the reason why Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin abstained from, rather than vetoed, the UNSC resolution. India, a non-permanent member of UNSC and holder of this year’s G20 presidency also abstained. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over the G20 presidency from President Jokowi at the end of the Bali summit.
The three big powers, surprisingly, abstained when the UNSC adopted a resolution demanding that the Myanmar junta immediately end violence and release all political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, whose democratically elected government was seized by the military in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021.
The resolution also acknowledges “the central role of [ASEAN] in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis and encouraging the international community to support the ASEAN-led mechanism and process in this regard”.
