Speaking to The Jakarta Post during the opening session of the webinar series titled “Multilateralism during a pandemic: Indonesia’s Perspective” on Thursday, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said countries around the world needed to make concerted efforts to promote multilateralism, which is now under threat from what she called transactional politics in international relations and growing self-reliance in dealing with the coronavirus.

“Indonesia continues to believe in the virtue of multilateralism. We will continue to enforce an active and free foreign policy by not allowing ourselves to take sides in the big power rivalries,” Retno said. The minister also expected that the current assault on multilateralism would be a temporary phenomenon and that before long countries could go back to promoting global cooperation.

“Countries tend to close their doors to foreigners, which is very well understood during this pandemic. But hopefully this kind of attitude will only last temporarily. We need to build trust on global governance especially during this specific time,” Retno said.

The country's top diplomat said that as major powers like the United States and China showed little interest in working together to tackle the global health crisis, Indonesia and a handful of other countries had drafted a United Nations General Assembly resolution in March calling for a multilateral approach to respond to the coronavirus.

Retno added that the frustration regarding big power rivalries during the pandemic could in fact be an impetus for enacting reform within international organizations including the UN, spearheaded by developing countries.

Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Gary Quinlan backed Retno's proposal, urging middle powers like Australia and Indonesia to forge a new kind of cooperation on the issue of public health and the economy.

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