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View all search resultsAnalysis: Is non-aligned Indonesia shifting further away from West?
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) shakes hands with then Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto on July 31, 2024, during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. Prabowo will meet Putin on June 18 on his first visit to Russia since taking office, the Foreign Ministry said on June 12, as Southeast Asia's biggest economy seeks to boost ties with Moscow. (AFP/Pool/Maxim Shemetov)
“Don’t read too much into it,” said President Prabowo Subianto on his decision to turn down the invitation to meet with the leaders of wealthy Western countries in the Group of Seven (G7) in Canada this month, going instead to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Prabowo paused from his speech at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which was also attended by Putin, to address the concerns that his decision was seen in some quarters as a snub, and that non-aligned Indonesia is shifting closer to the Russia-China camp in the ongoing big-power rivalry.
“I gave my commitment to attend this forum before they [the G7] invited me […] We want to be friends with everybody,” the Indonesian leader said.
The G7 summit would have given Prabowo, inaugurated as president in October, a rare chance to meet with the leaders of the powerful Western countries, including United States President Donald Trump, whom he has not yet met. Not many leaders are invited to this prestigious group, and Prabowo would have been a special guest in the Canadian town of Kananaskis.
Yet, his St Petersburg speech did not come across as convincing that Indonesia would remain neutral in the ongoing big power rivalry, with veiled criticisms of the US on the one hand, and a lavishing of praise for China and Russia on the other.
He said Indonesia would not follow the philosophies of “the biggest and most powerful power in the world” and described Russia and China as leaders that “never had double standards” and are defenders of “the downtrodden [and] the oppressed.”
Although the global political landscape is rapidly polarizing into two camps, Prabowo in his speech is still convinced that multipolarity is the way forward, where Indonesia, the fourth-largest country in the world, will be able to exercise its active and independent foreign policy.
