With the Group of 20 Summit commencing and Indonesia assuming the ASEAN chairmanship in about two weeks’ time, panelists at a global think tank conference have lauded the nation’s efforts in maintaining the relevancy of both groups on the global stage.

Indonesia’s G20 presidency has been eclipsed by Russia's war in Ukraine, which, on top of sparking global food and energy crises and a potential collapse of international cooperation, has fueled fears of deepening conflict closer to home, with Jakarta presiding over ASEAN next year under the shadow of the Myanmar coup crisis.

Yose Rizal Damuri, executive director of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that while the G20 itself was a massive group that talked about “everything under the sky”, Indonesia had sought to keep the forums focused on issues of common concern.

He pointed out that parallel discussions were underway among 13 working groups under the Sherpa track and seven under the Finance track. For these discussions, Indonesia has tried to keep the focus on three priority agendas set early on in its presidency: global health architecture, digital transformation and energy transition.

“Indonesia was actually quite successful in directing discussions to focus on several important and critical agenda,” Yose said in a discussion held as part of the Council of Councils’ 13th Regional Conference that gathers think tanks from around the world, on Tuesday.

In spite of its best efforts, however, Indonesia had not been able to bridge the interests of G20 member states, the economist said, as most working groups and ministerial meetings in the lead-up to the G20 Summit later this month had failed to produce a joint statement. Instead, Indonesia has been issuing G20 chair statements.

Michael Fullilove, executive director of Australia’s Lowy Institute foreign policy think tank, acknowledged that the hosting of the G20 forum would be particularly hard, noting that Australia faced similar hardship during its presidency in 2014 that coincided with Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

“Unfortunately, the world is splintering a little bit. It’s becoming harder to focus, to find bandwidth, to think about big thematic issues. We are all just trying to get through the crisis we are living through,” Fullilove said during the discussion held at the CSIS headquarters in Jakarta.

The fact that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was committed to attending the G20 summit regardless of whether Russia’s leader would be there was a kind of acknowledgement of Indonesia’s leadership, he said.

Going forward, the foreign policy analyst said Australia hoped to see an outward-looking Indonesia taking charge of its leadership role in Southeast Asia, and that “we would do everything we can to support that”.

Shao Yuqun, director of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Studies program at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), also said Indonesia has been doing an “excellent job” in overcoming the difficulties of being the G20 president, even though military conflicts such as the one happening in Ukraine were exposing differences among member states.

“I think China – and India also – think that those military conflicts should not be a reason to hinder collaboration and cooperation among G20 members,” she said during the discussion.

Shao said that G20 member states had to remember the original reasons for why they need multilateral cooperation and refrain from using “global governance issues to strengthen certain strategic influences”.

With Russia backing out from the United Nations-brokered Black Sea grain deal this week, observers say the G20 Summit proceedings are looking increasingly complicated. Russian President Vladimir Putin most recently said on the record that he was still mulling over whether he would go to the summit in Bali, but that it would depend on the prevailing conditions.

Continuity in ASEAN

Panelists were also hopeful that ASEAN would be able to properly address the political crisis in Myanmar while at the same time reassert ASEAN centrality, when the chairmanship of the bloc passes from Cambodia to Indonesia in the coming weeks.

“I know this is a very hard issue for ASEAN but the developments in Myanmar have been a huge blow to democracy, with massive human rights implications,” Fullilove said of the February 2021 military coup.

While he was certain the Myanmar issue would not “make or break” ASEAN, Lowy’s chief analyst said it was a “moment of clarity” that such a tragedy could happen to an ASEAN country.

“I would like to see all of us doing more [to solve the Myanmar issue],” he said.

Meanwhile, Shao of the China-based SIIS noted that ASEAN centrality currently faced many challenges both from within and without.

Amid the emergence of competing regional security and economic mechanisms in the region, the organization has had to juggle the many interests pulling it in different directions.

“I know it puts ASEAN in a difficult situation to try to balance all major powers, but personally I think the Chinese government has a lot of confidence in Indonesia’s chairmanship next year,” the foreign policy scholar said.

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