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The Diplomat
08-07-2025
- Business
- The Diplomat
To Be a Bridge Builder: Indonesia's Debut at the BRICS Summit
Jakarta understands the importance of maintaining cooperation with both China and the United States, as demonstrated by Prabowo's attendance at the BRICS Summit and his efforts to negotiate with the Trump administration. On July 6, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attended the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed him during his opening speech and congratulated Indonesia on becoming a full member of the organization as of January 2025. Lula emphasized the significance of the summit by referring to BRICS as the heir to the Bandung Conference. In 1955, Indonesia hosted the Asian-African Conference in Bandung to promote independence and solidarity among 29 mostly newly independent and developing countries. Lula asserted that BRICS carries the 'Bandung Spirit' in its quest for a multipolar international order, especially amidst the ongoing collapse of multilateralism, which threatens the autonomy of developing countries as well as international climate commitments and fair trade. Furthermore, as the United States prepares to issue tariff letters to several countries, Prabowo's presence at the BRICS Summit signified Indonesia's aim to strengthen solidarity among the Global South in response to the United States' unilateral tariff measures. On April 2, President Donald Trump announced steep hikes in tariff rates for U.S. trading partners, including a 32 percent tariff on imports from Indonesia. In 2024, the U.S. was one of Indonesia's top trading partners, and Jakarta had a $16.8 billion trade surplus with Washington. Conversely, the U.S. faced a $17.9 billion deficit with Indonesia, making Indonesia the 15th-largest contributor to the U.S. trade imbalance. Trump soon after paused the looming tariffs for 90 days, a measure initially set to expire on July 9; with some administration officials stating in early July that the deadline had been pushed back to August 1. Indonesia, like many other states, attempted to pursue a better deal with the Trump administration, in part by agreeing to a trade pact worth $52.3 billion, which entails an increase in imports of U.S. fuels and investments in the U.S. energy and agricultural sectors, as stated by Chief Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto. However, it remains uncertain if the negotiations will yield results, as Trump recently stated that he intended to send a 'take it or leave it' letter instead of engaging in 'complicated' negotiations. Indonesia's concern regarding Trump's unilateral tariffs aligns with the views of BRICS, which believe these actions could harm the global economy and undermine the authority and rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Rio de Janeiro Declaration calls for reforming the WTO, stating it is the only multilateral institution with the necessary mandate, expertise, universal reach, and capacity to lead discussions on international trade, including the negotiation of new trade rules. The declaration also advocates for reforming the Bretton Woods institutions to better reflect the growing influence of developing countries in the global economy. By doing so, BRICS positions itself as a platform for multilateralism and a driving force for global governance reform — an initiative that Indonesia is eager to support. Unfortunately, Trump appears suspicious of BRICS. He has threatened to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on any country that aligns itself with what he considers the 'Anti-American policies' of BRICS. The aspirations of BRICS, such as global governance reform and financing in local currencies, are viewed as challenges to American hegemony. Indonesia recognizes the fierce rivalry among major powers and the desire of developing countries for autonomy. In many international fora, Prabowo continues to uphold Indonesia's long-standing policy of an independent and active foreign approach. Amid concerns from scholars about Indonesia leaning toward China, Jakarta understands the importance of maintaining cooperation with both China and the United States. No major power should be excluded from development efforts. Often, Jakarta aims to foster inclusivity in the region. At the 34th ASEAN Summit in 2019, Indonesia steered the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), promoting a regional norm that welcomes contributions from any major power as opposed to the polar opposites of 'Asia for Asians' or concerted effort to encircle China. Indonesia has also actively sought U.S. involvement in developing its nickel industry, which is perceived to be largely influenced by China. Unfortunately, the U.S. has not seized this opportunity, leaving Indonesia with fewer options. Nevertheless, Indonesia remains steadfast in maintaining its impartial stance. During the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Prabowo proposed that Indonesia act as a bridge builder between the Global South and the Global North. This strategy is designed to reduce tensions between developing and developed nations, as Indonesia aims to prevent BRICS from becoming an opposing force that further deepens the divide between these two groups of countries. A recent study published in Foreign Affairs Magazine showed that Indonesia is one of the most effective hedgers among the ASEAN countries. It received a score of 49 on the Anatomy of Choice Alignment Index, where a score of zero indicates complete alignment with China, and a score of 100 signifies full alignment with the United States. The index highlights Jakarta's diplomatic success in maintaining a balance among superpowers, lending credibility to Indonesia's envisioned role as a bridge builder. Indonesia is not sleepwalking into strategic alignment with China. Prabowo's proposal to act as a mediator should be seriously considered to ensure that BRICS contributes to a multipolar order.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
70 Years Later, the Bandung Conference Is More Relevant Than Ever
This week marks the 70th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference, when 29 Asian and African leaders whose countries had recently freed themselves from colonial oppression met in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss their common legacies and challenges, as well as how to escape Cold War-era great power confrontation and advance mutual cooperation. Today, the threat of colonialism is back with a vengeance, as Russia seeks to conquer Ukraine and the U.S. advances territorial claims on Canada, Greenland and Panama. As a result, rediscovering the principles and the spirit of Bandung, and reinterpreting them for today's challenges, is as important as ever. Back in 1955, the Bandung Conference—as it became known—enunciated 10 principles, including respect for human rights, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the equality of all races and countries; the right to self-defense individually or collectively in line with the United Nations Charter; and a commitment to the resolution of conflicts through peaceful means. The conference also rejected aggression and the use of force for territorial conquest; collective defense arrangements aimed primarily at serving the interests of the great powers; and interference in internal affairs. The systematic violation of these principles by Russia in Ukraine, combined with U.S. President Donald Trump's expansionist rhetoric, make them as relevant as ever, while also offering an opportunity for the post-American 'Rest of the West.' The Western liberal democracies would do well now to embrace the Bandung Principles as a means of building bridges with the Global South, even if they are more comfortable with some of them than with others. In principle, Western liberal democracies would subscribe wholeheartedly to respect for human rights, sovereignty, territorial integrity, equality, non-aggression, self-defense and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. They would also agree to the idea that collective defense, notably through NATO, should be understood as an extension and application of self-defense, rather than as a means of serving great power interests. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. However, they would struggle more with the notion of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, given the tension between respecting every country's right to freely choose the nature of its political system and the international community's 'responsibility to protect' human rights, which they feel under certain circumstances could trigger a response by all. There's also a blurry line separating rule-of-law conditionality embedded internally in voluntary groupings like the European Union and the belief that political conditionality should guide trade, development or security relationships externally. But few would dispute that the states of the liberal West can no longer preach democracy to the rest of the world as they once did, both because they often violate rights and freedoms at home and back partner states that do so; and because the West no longer wields the influence it once did abroad. The days of external coercion aimed at shaping other countries' political systems—all the way to bombing them into democracy, as during the United States' post-9/11 wars in the Middle East—can now be seen as both wrong and gone. For their part, countries in the Global South generally subscribe to the Bandung Principles as much today as they did in 1955. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, for instance, they have upheld the renewed value of non-alignment. However, it seems they struggle to rediscover the more elusive yet just as important idea of the Bandung Spirit, which aimed at conveying a sense of collective agency and strategic autonomy in the pursuit of the principles that the participating states agreed on back in 1955. Today, in fact, much of that spirit is lost. Underpinning the present-day variant of non-alignment, often referred to as multi-alignment, is a sense of opportunism, with each country seeking to promote its self-interest, while avoiding making any commitments to anything or anyone greater than themselves, let alone sticking their neck out for it. This doesn't mean that countries in the Global South refuse to take principled stances. At the U.N. General Assembly, many of them consistently do so, not only when it fits their worldview, such as condemning Israel's violations of international law, but also when it means taking uncomfortable positions, like denouncing Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. In this respect, many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are less guilty of hypocrisy and double standards than some countries in the West. However, where they have fallen short is on consistent action. Countries in the Global South—often with good reason—are critical of unilateral sanctions and military aid as foreign policy tools, presenting them as the antithesis of diplomacy, rather than as instruments that can act in support of diplomacy. Backing their argument, they can point to alternative forms of foreign policy action that function within multilateral institutions, such as South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. However, they have shied away from purposeful action, be it multilateral sanctions or recourse to international tribunals, when the target in question is a friend or partner like Russia. In this respect, countries in the Global South have fallen into the same double-standards trap they rightly criticize the West for, with both tending to act on the mistaken assumption that crimes are always committed by adversaries, never by friends. The Global South's critique of the West would be far more powerful if it were backed by alternative and consistent forms of foreign policy action in support of the Bandung Principles, which the countries comprising the Global South ostensibly still subscribe to. Without action, the idea of non-aligned solidarity becomes empty. At best it becomes a contradiction in terms; at worst, it can end up in appeasement and complicity. It is only by rediscovering the positive and purposeful connotations of the negative notion of non-alignment that the Bandung Spirit can be reborn and inspire the world. The Rest of the West, too, would do well to look in the mirror and apply some of its criticisms of the Global South to its own behavior. The U.S. disavowal under Trump of the tenets of the liberal international order has created a leadership vacuum, one that can be filled not by hypocritical preaching, but rather by mutual respect and solidarity. Nathalie Tocci is director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, part-time professor at the School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute) and honorary professor at the University of Tubingen. She has been special adviser to the EU high representative. Her WPR column appears monthly. The post 70 Years Later, the Bandung Conference Is More Relevant Than Ever appeared first on World Politics Review.
Indian Express
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Opinion The world order is in flux. Multipolarity, based on equitable principles, is needed
Multipolarity is gaining salience around the world. It has been on the agenda of developing countries since 1955, when the Asian-African Conference was held in Bandung, Indonesia (April 18–24). Seven decades on, the relevance of its equal-power-distribution concept is being acknowledged even by proponents of unipolarity, reflecting an understanding of a world in profound transition. In the early days of his administration, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called unipolarity 'an anomaly' and 'a product of the end of the Cold War.' He also signalled that the world was 'going to reach back to a point where you had multiple great powers in different parts of the planet.' These words found some resonance in India, with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar highlighting that the move to multipolarity 'is something that suits India' and 'requires greater collaboration'. However, the Europeans have not found much meaning in it, with the Munich Security Conference Report 2025 deliberately misinterpreting the term and replacing multipolar with 'multipolarised' — a divided world. Whichever way it's viewed, there is clearly a dramatic shift from how the world organised itself over the past 80 years (1945–2025), when managing interstate relations among great powers, middle powers, and the rest followed a rulebook. Unipolarity and bipolarity were reflected in the formation of NATO in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact in 1955, with the US and the Soviet Union leading two rival camps of formidable political, economic, military, and nuclear capabilities. However, the idea of bipolarity was put on hold after the Soviet Union lost the Cold War in 1991, making the US the unchallenged pole. Many experts predicted that America's unipolar moment would last indefinitely, but this belief was quickly disproven — within a decade — by the 9/11 attacks and China's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), with US support. Unexpectedly, a new bipolarity began to emerge with the gradual rise of China — one of the original participants in the Bandung Conference. In the first decade of the 21st century, under the guise of 'globalisation', where the flow of goods, investment, and people created economic interdependence, China took political and strategic steps to position itself as a second pole, in competition with the US. By 2013, China's foreign policy, led by its Belt and Road Initiative, had found friends in unexpected places — from South America to Africa and Eastern Europe. Several other power poles also began to gain strength: Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, and Indonesia, along with powerful regional groupings such as the EU, ASEAN, and the African Union (AU). The four successive G20 presidencies held by developing countries starting in 2022, and the AU's elevation to equal membership, diluted the G7's dominance in the global order. Multipolarity had extended its reach. The ongoing Trump presidency has upended long-held definitions. Interstate relationships are changing at an astonishing pace — none more so than those within NATO and the US-Europe partnership — due to Trump opening direct negotiations with Putin to end the Ukraine conflict. The US shifted from being Ukraine's most significant strategic partner to a mere mediator. Trump remains confident he can do business with Putin, offering a basic and straightforward rationale: 'If I thought Putin wouldn't keep a deal, why would I conclude one with him?' Even the venue for G7 mediation has changed—moved to West Asia, with Saudi Arabia taking the lead as host. In this emerging multipolar world, are nations now expected to rely on a leader's word rather than on formal interstate arrangements? However they are understood, such developments undermine the 'rules-based order', where respect for territorial integrity or compliance with international law can be suspended at will. The US president's statements on integrating Canada as the 51st state, buying Greenland, taking over the Panama Canal, and the 'Riviera plan' for Gaza have caused new turbulence, the outcome of which remains to be seen. The evolving US policy toward China and the emergence of a new US-China equation will further shape the contours of multipolarity. Europe has been observing these shifts, and countries like Germany are seeking alignment with some of the original Bandung pioneers — many of whom are now emerging middle powers. These nations embody the pragmatism at the heart of multipolarity and differ from the G7-style 'do-or-die' alliances in their partnerships and agreements. A case in point is India's position on de-dollarisation: It has no current interest in it, as many problems in South Asia stem from the scarcity of dollars. As Jaishankar remarked, 'Just because there is multipolarity, it does not have to translate into currency multipolarity.' The consequences of the ongoing polycrises are increasingly visible in capitals around the world. New definitions of interstate relations, new behaviours, and doctrines are taking shape. India will do well to seize this moment and translate its multipolar intentions into reality by leading the effort to craft and practise equitable new rules that reflect the Bandung principles in this emerging global order.
