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Meeting of world leaders shows that Putin has lost his place in the spotlight

The three major summits of world leaders that took place in Asia last week made one thing clear: Vladimir Putin is marginalized on the world stage. Putin, whose attack on Ukraine nine months ago devastated the European country and roiled the global economy, declined to attend any of the diplomatic meetings. From home, he found himself subject to significant censure and the hardening of opposition to his war.

The meeting of the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Bangkok ended on Saturday (19) with a declaration that makes reference to the positions of the nations already expressed in other forums – one of them is the resolution of the United Nations (UN) which condemns Russian aggression against Ukraine “in the strongest terms” – while noting diverging views.

The APEC statement echoes another, that of the summit of the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) in Bali, held earlier this week.

“A majority of members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and emphasized that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing weaknesses in the global economy,” the document said, adding that there were different “assessments” within the group on the situation.

Summits aside, the week also saw Putin – who allegedly initiated the invasion in an attempt to restore Russia’s supposed former glory – as an increasingly isolated leader, locked in Moscow and unwilling to face his counterparts in large global meetings.

Fear of possible political maneuvers against him should he leave the capital, an obsession with personal safety and a desire to avoid confrontational scenes at the summits – especially when Russia faces heavy losses on the battlefield – were all likely calculations that went into the equation. Putin’s decision, according to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

At the same time, the Russian leader may not want to draw unwanted attention to the small group of nations that have remained friendly with Russia, such as India and China, whose leaders Putin met at a regional summit in Uzbekistan in September.

“He doesn’t want to be a toxic person,” Gabuev opined.

tougher visions

However, even among countries that have not taken a tougher stance against Russia, there are signs of a loss of patience, if not with Russia itself, then at least with the effects of its aggression. Energy restrictions, food security issues and rising global inflation are squeezing economies around the world.

G20 host Indonesia has not explicitly condemned Russia for the invasion, but its president Joko Widodo told world leaders on Tuesday that “we must end the war”.

India, which has been a crucial buyer of Russia’s energy while the West has shunned Russian fuel in recent months, also reiterated at the G20 its call to “find a way to get back on the ceasefire path”.

The summit’s final declaration includes a line that says: “Today’s era must not be one of war” — language that echoes what Indian leader Narendra Modi told Putin in September when they met on the sidelines of the summit in Uzbekistan. It is not so clear whether China, whose strategic partnership with Russia is bolstered by a close relationship between leader Xi Jinping and Putin, has had any change of heart.

The Chinese government has long refused to condemn the invasion and has not even referred to it as such. Instead, China has criticized western sanctions and expanded the Kremlin’s version, blaming the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the conflict, although this rhetoric appears to have been readjusted in the state-controlled national media. in recent months.

Still, in unofficial meetings with Western leaders last week, Xi reiterated China’s call for a ceasefire through dialogue. According to his interlocutors’ readings, he agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – although those remarks were not included in China’s account of the talks.

Observers of China’s foreign policy, however, say its desire to maintain strong ties with Russia likely remains unshakable.

“While these statements are an indirect criticism of Vladimir Putin, I don’t think they are intended to distance China from Russia,” said Brian Hart, a China Power Project fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Xi is saying these things to an audience that wants to hear them.”

split screen

Russian isolation, however, seems even more glaring when considering Xi’s diplomatic tour of Bali and Bangkok this week. While the administration of US President Joe Biden has named Beijing – not Moscow – as the “most serious long-term challenge” to the global order, Xi has been treated as a valued global partner by Western leaders, many of whom met with the Chinese leader for talks aimed at increasing communication and cooperation.

In addition to Biden at the G20, Xi held talks on Saturday (19) with US Vice President Kamala Harris, who represented the US at the APEC summit in Bangkok. Harris said in a tweet that she noted a “key message” from Biden’s G20 meeting with Xi: the importance of keeping the lines of communication open “to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.”

In an impassioned plea for peace delivered to a meeting of business leaders on the sidelines of the APEC summit on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to draw a distinction between Russia’s actions and tensions with China.

Referring to the competition between the US and China and the growing confrontation in regional Asian waters, Macron said: “What makes this war different is that it is an aggression against international rules. All countries have stability because of international rules,” he said, calling for Russia to return “to the table” and “respect the international order”. The urgency of this feeling grew after a Russian missile landed in Poland, killing two people on Tuesday (15), at the same time as the G20 summit was taking place. As Poland is a NATO member, a threat to its security could trigger a response from the entire bloc.

The situation was defused after the initial investigation suggested the missile was coming from the Ukrainian side in a defense mishap – but it highlighted the potential for a miscalculation to trigger a world war.

A day after that situation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pointed to what he called a “split screen”.

“While the world works to help the most vulnerable people, Russia is targeting them; while leaders around the world reaffirm our commitment to the UN Charter and international rules that benefit all of our people, President Putin continues to try to destroy those same principles,” Blinken told reporters on Thursday night. ) in Bangkok.

search for consensus

Coming into the week of international meetings, the US and its allies were ready to project that message to their international peers. While strong messages were sent out, gathering consensus was not easy — and differences remain.

The G20 and APEC statements know divisions between how members voted at the UN to support their resolution “condemning” Russian aggression. The rumor is that while most members “strongly condemned” the war, “there were other opinions and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”.

Even making such a statement with reservations was an arduous process at both summits, according to officials present. Indonesia’s Jokowi said G20 leaders stayed until “midnight” discussing the paragraph on Ukraine.

“There was a lot of pressure that came after the G20 reached consensus on their communiqué,” Matt Murray, the top US official for APEC, said in an interview with CNN after the closing of the dome. He added that the US had been consistent during lower-level meetings “throughout the year” about the need to address the war in that forum, given its impacts on trade and food security.

“In all the cases where we didn’t reach consensus before, it was because Russia blocked the declaration”, he added. Meanwhile, “economies in between” were concerned about the invasion, but unsure whether the topic should be on the agenda, according to Murray. He also said statements released this week at APEC were the result of more than 100 hours of negotiations, in person and online.

The nations present at the summits have several geostrategic and economic relationships with Russia, which impacts their positions. But another concern some Asian nations may have is whether the moves to censor Russia are part of a US effort to weaken Moscow, according to former Thai foreign minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon, who spoke to the CNN in the days before the summit.

“Countries are saying that we don’t want to be just a pawn in this game to be used to undermine another power,” said Suphamongkhon, a member of the advisory board of the RAND Corporation Center for Asia Pacific Policy. Instead, framing Russia’s censure around its “violation of international law and war crimes that may have been committed” would target aspects of the situation that “everyone here rejects.”

Russia’s rejection in these respects could also send a message to China, which has flouted an international ruling refuting its territorial claims in the South China Sea and vowed to “reunify” itself with Taiwan’s autonomous democracy, which it has never controlled, by force. if necessary.

While this week’s efforts may have increased the pressure on Putin, the Russian leader has experience with this dynamic. Before Putin’s ouster over the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Group of Seven (G7) bloc was the Group of Eight — and it remains to be seen whether international expressions will have an impact.

But without Putin on the table, as leaders emphasized this week, the suffering will continue — and there will be a hole in the international system.

(CNN’s Nectar Gan contributed to this report from the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia)

Source: CNN Brasil

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