The leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States, which form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the so-called Quad, were opposed to all attempts to "change the status quo by force, particularly in the Indo-Pacific".

The posture came amid growing concerns about whether China could try to forcibly seize self-ruled Taiwan as the world continues to pressure Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Retno said the war in Ukraine had shown that a “deep trust deficit” was prevalent among countries in the world, stressing that signs of this trust deficit were already “among us in the Indo-Pacific”.

The foreign minister delivered these remarks at the ministerial session of the 12th Delhi Dialogue in New Delhi, where she also attended the Special ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (SAIFMM) on Thursday and Friday.

While she agreed with the dialogue’s theme of “Building Bridges in the Indo-Pacific'', Retno said that doing so required mutual trust in the region, underlining that the lack of trust was a “virus” that obstructed cooperation and promoted the zero-sum game as a global paradigm.

She also warned that what happened in Ukraine could happen in the Indo-Pacific if the region was not careful.

Continuing with her metaphor, she said that a “vaccine” against the trust deficit had been available in ASEAN’s regional outlook, which the group had developed over more than five decades of maintaining peace and stability in the region.

“If you look at the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific [AOIP], then you will see that the ‘vaccine of strategic trust’ is already in the [genetic makeup] of the AOIP,” Retno said.

She added that the terms of the AOIP were simple: an inclusive regional architecture in the Indo-Pacific that focused on concrete cooperation.

Read also: Indonesia emphasizes inclusivity, collaboration in Indo-Pacific

In a joint statement following the foreign ministers’ meeting, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Singaporean Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said they agreed on strengthening and deepening the ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership further.

Their statement said that the ASEAN-India partnership was intended to be mutually beneficial “across the whole spectrum of political, security, economic, sociocultural and development cooperation by utilizing relevant existing ASEAN-led mechanisms.

India-Indonesia summit

Retno and Jaishankar also met on Friday at the 7th Indonesia-India Joint Commission Meeting to discuss bilateral cooperation as well as the recent controversy over anti-Islam remarks involving two politicians from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Earlier this month, Indonesia joined several Muslim majority countries in condemning two BJP politicians, Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal, whose remarks were deemed to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

“I specifically conveyed to the Indian Minister [Indonesia’s] concerns and condemnation in response to the statements from the two BJP politicians that insulted the Prophet Muhammad,” Retno told reporters on Friday.

“I reiterated what I previously said at the ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers meeting: a culture of tolerance and mutual respect was important,” she added, and that the two countries had agreed to reactivate the Indonesia-India Interfaith Dialogue of 2018.

Retno also said that the two ministers had discussed the Group of Twenty, as India would be taking over the G20 presidency from Indonesia next year. Meanwhile, the Indian minister confirmed that he would attend the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting on July 7-8 in Bali.

“We agreed that amid this challenging situation, it is the G20’s responsibility to be the catalyst of economic recovery. I offer my thanks for India’s strong support of Indonesia’s G20 presidency,” she said.

Before arriving in New Delhi on June 13, Retno had attended the High-Level Dialogue on the Indo-Pacific in Prague, hosted by the Czech Republic as part of this year’s trio presidency of the Council of the European Union. At the dialogue, the foreign minister called for inclusivity, rules-based order and concrete cooperation to build shared security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.

Read also: Ukraine crisis overshadows EU’s Indo-Pacific move

In a joint statement following the Tokyo summit late last month, the Quad leaders specifically referred to "the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia and efforts to disrupt other countries' offshore resource exploitation activities" in the region.

These are all activities China is accused of carrying out in the Indo-Pacific, though the Quad leaders’ joint statement explicitly avoided mentioning either China or Russia.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in his remarks at the summit that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine directly challenged the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

“We should never, ever allow a similar incident to happen in the Indo-Pacific,” Kishida said.