Errant missile sabotages Jokowi’s G20 diplomatic success

US President Joe Biden greets Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the G20 summit in Bali on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

It was all going so well for Indonesia.

A draft G20 communique had devised a masterful compromise on Russia’s war on Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping had thrown off his wolf warrior coat revealing a leader ready to re-engage, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo was showing a new mettle on global affairs with a statesmanlike call for an end to the war.

A relaxed Joe Biden, fresh from not-disastrous midterm results, even declared he might stay in Bali.

Fears the Indonesian-hosted G20 leader talks would end in failure – the first to close without issuing a consensus statement – were slowly vaporising in Bali’s tropical climate.

All it took to up-end months of careful diplomacy was for an errant missile to overshoot Ukrainian territory by 6km and end up on Poland’s side of the border.

Hours later, Jokowi cut a lonely figure on a scheduled tour of Bali’s new mangrove boardwalk as the US President huddled in emergency talks with the leaders of the G7, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov winged his way back to Moscow.

By the time G20 leaders dribbled in late to the Ngurah Rai forest park for a photo of them all digging holes – unfortunate optics given the circumstances – the Indonesian leader had reverted to an earlier insistence the G20 was not the forum for global politics, notwithstanding his own foray into that arena a day earlier.

“The G20 is an economic forum, a financial forum and diplomat forum, not a political forum,” he said when asked about the missile attacks. “So here we talk about the economy.”

Indonesia was always facing an uphill battle to pull a successful G20 together in such a tense security environment.

Rightly or wrongly, the summit’s failure to produce a joint communique would have reflected on its ability to get the world on the same page, although in reality any blame lies with the composition of a group increasingly riven by rivalries and polarised national interests.

The fact it could bring so many leaders to the table and focus their minds on the most pressing issues of the day – nuclear escalation, food and energy insecurity, economic stability – was a minor miracle.

Lavrov’s early exit from Bali – after Russian President Vladimir Putin squibbed on Jokowi’s invitation – was likely also a blessing, given that a showdown would likely have fractured the fragile consensus holding together the only G20 joint statement all year.

In the end, Indonesia pulled a rabbit out of the hat by saving the Bali leaders’ summit. But while there is no resolution to the Ukraine crisis, the G20 itself remains on life support.