Southeast Asia’s Poor Showing at the Ukraine Peace Summit

At the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) in Singapore earlier this month, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an impassioned plea for Southeast Asian countries to attend the Peace Summit for Ukraine, which was held in Switzerland on 15-16 June.

In doing so, he argued, they would be showing their commitment to peace and diplomacy to resolve Europe’s biggest conflict since the end of the Second World War.

Zelenskyy must therefore have been sorely disappointed that his call went unheeded in more than half the region’s capitals. Only five of 11 Southeast Asian states attended: Timor-Leste and four ASEAN member states – Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Only Timor-Leste sent its head of government, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

Of the five regional states that attended, Indonesia and Thailand declined to sign the final communiqué.

Except for Singapore, the Philippines and Timor-Leste, the other attendees and non-attendees from Southeast Asia appear to have had more important priorities than the Russia-Ukraine War, including Gaza, future membership of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping and, in Vietnam’s case, a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It was always expected that Singapore, which has taken a strong stand against Russian aggression, would attend.

At the conference, Senior Minister of State Sim Ann reiterated that Singapore’s condemnation of Russia was not about taking sides but upholding international law and the UN Charter, and that the crisis in Europe posed an existential threat to all countries, including the city-state.

As a member of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Singapore delegation took a particular interest in the session on nuclear safety and security, which focused on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Singapore endorsed the final communiqué which called for the Zaporizhzhia facility to be returned to Ukraine’s sovereign control. 

Thailand’s representative, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Russ Jalichandra, emphasised the importance of bringing an end to the conflict to ensure global food security.

Why Thailand did not sign the final communiqué is unclear, but it may have had something to do with its application to join BRICS a week earlier. Thailand’s government, led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin since September 2023, has been laser focused on growing the economy.

Disappointingly for Kyiv, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. decided to skip the summit despite having met Zelenskyy in Manila after the SLD. Instead, Marcos sent his advisor Carlito Galvez.

Even more disappointingly for Zelenskyy was Indonesia’s low-level participation. Southeast Asia’s largest country was represented by its ambassador to Switzerland, Swajaya Ngurah.

It was never expected that every country in the region would send a delegation.

This was somewhat surprising given President Joko Widodo’s and president-elect Prabowo Subianto’s peace initiatives but Jakarta probably did not send a more senior representative for two reasons: first, a lack of confidence in the summit’s ability to achieve a breakthrough; and second, the absence of a similar international conference to bring an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza which has distressed many Indonesians. The second reason may also explain why Indonesia refused to sign the final communiqué.

It was never expected that every country in the region would send a delegation.

It was a dead certainty that Myanmar would be a no-show due to the ruling junta’s growing dependence on Moscow for military assistance in Myanmar’s bloody civil war.

Vietnam and Laos were also not expected to attend given their friendly relations with Russia, and President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Hanoi which was confirmed the day after the summit ended.

Nevertheless, it must have been galling for Kyiv that Vietnam’s deputy foreign minister, Nguyen Minh Hang, was actually in Switzerland just two days before the conference to attend the opening of a photographic exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Accords. Even more galling, two days prior to that, she had been in Russia to attend a meeting of BRICS-Plus on the sidelines of the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting. Vietnam may well be considering applying for BRICS membership soon.

That meeting was also attended by Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith and Thailand’s new foreign minister Maris Sangiampongsa, who submitted the country’s formal application to join BRICS.

A week prior to the summit, Cambodia’s former prime minister (PM) Hun Sen had announced that his country would not be represented at the summit because Russia had not been invited and without Russia’s presence, the summit could not succeed.

Hun Sen was eager to stress that the decision not to attend the summit was Cambodia’s own, and that the government had not come under pressure from China to stay away.

In Singapore, Zelenskyy had accused China of trying to coerce countries not to attend the Swiss meeting, prompting a strong denial from China.

It was always going to be a toss-up whether Malaysia would send a representative. Although PM Anwar Ibrahim has condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine, he has also accused the West of double standards: condemning Russia but remaining “silent” on Palestine. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict on 7 October 2023, his criticism of the US has become even more strident.

Although the Malaysian government did not issue an official statement on its reasons for not attending the summit, it seems that it boycotted the event to protest what it sees as Western hypocrisy.

A few days after the summit, and in a boon to Russia’s BRICS chairmanship, Anwar announced that Malaysia would soon apply for membership of the organisation.

The presence of all 11 Southeast Asian countries was never going to make or break the summit but the region’s patchy attendance highlighted once again how Southeast Asia’s responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been shaped by differing geopolitical priorities. As the war drags on, the region’s attendance at a second planned peace summit could be even thinner.

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